


Set to Repeat, Subject to Change

by CrackingLamb



Category: Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Maybe Renewed Relationship?, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Relationship, There's a New Big Bad Out There
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 75,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12596312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Ten years after the SoSu walks out on Hancock, and the Commonwealth, she's back in town with some new (old) friends.  There's a new problem knocking on her door and it's going to hit close to home for all of them.  Will history repeat itself or can she make it right this time?





	1. Home

The Third Rail hadn’t changed.

Whitechapel Charlie was still behind the bar, his bowler hat askew, the tiny Union Jack sticker a little more faded, but still visible. Magnolia was still crooning on a spotlighted stage, still wearing a slinky little number. This one was black. The ambiance was still murky, quiet and a shambles. It had been a long road – from here to the Capital Wasteland and back – but it was worth it to feel like she was home again, even if it wasn’t under the best circumstances. Val sat in her old favorite barstool, still propped up by a wobbly shim, still hard shiny plastic with chased cracks all over it, and waited for Charlie to notice her.

“Well, bust my circuits,” the old Mr. Handy said when he saw her. “’ow long ‘as it been, love?”

“Too long,” Val replied, her voice rusty and croaking. The years had been hard and they showed in little ways. And some not so little ways.

“What are ya drinkin’ then?”

“Whiskey.”

“On the ‘ouse, jus’ for you, love.”

“No, Charlie, I insist. Still ten caps?”

The bartender huffed and his middle eye stalk irised in her face. “Fine. Ten caps.”

“Here you go.” She counted them out, some misshapen, some faded almost to plain aluminum, some bright and new.

“Where ya been all these years, if ya don’t mind my askin’?”

“To hell and back.”

“Bold move to show your face in town,” the Mr. Handy warned. “I ‘eard of your troubles with the Mayor. I fink everyone ‘as.”

“Old news, Charlie. I've…well we’ve both moved on, I hope.”

“Always wondered why he din’t foreclose on your place, but that's ‘is business. You stayin’ around this time?” 

"I don’t know yet. I’m waiting for someone. I guess…” She stopped staring into her glass and met Charlie’s eye stalk. “Well it depends on how things go, I guess.”

“No time like the present,” Charlie said. There was a stillness behind Val that hadn’t been there before, but she didn’t turn. She could smell the Mentats over the cloud of smoke that habitually hung in the Rail. She nearly smiled. She’d almost forgotten what his scent was like in her nose. _Leather, dust, smoke, gunpowder and gun oil, chems_.

“So a ghoul walks into a bar…” she quipped, just barely turning her head to see him in her periphery.

“Ya got nerve, I’ll give ya that,” Hancock said.

“I have a debt, is what I have.” She withdrew a military ammo bag from her pack and dropped it on the bar. “Ten thousand caps. Back taxes all paid up, right?”

There was a sudden tight grip on her upper arm and he jerked her to her feet. “I don’t want your caps.”

“Hey, I’m a proper taxpaying citizen of Goodneighbor, Mayor. Just doing my part.”

“Fuck you, I don’t want you here.” She turned her head and got a good look at him, up close and personal. The years hadn’t touched him at all. Unless one counted the bitter tilt to his mouth, the anger in his flat black eyes. She knew she had changed, and knew when he saw it. Not that it was avoidable. The scars ran from the left side of her hairline to her jaw, over her eye and cheekbone, over the bridge of her nose. She was lucky she could still see out of that eye, and she knew that too.

“Fuck you back, Hancock. I go where I please. Mayor does not equal dictator.”

He bodily dragged her from the bar to the VIP room and released her so abruptly she practically fell into a chair. “Ten years, Valara. It’s been ten years since you disappeared in the night like a thief. No word, no apologies, no goodbyes.  Even that fuckwit Paladin had no idea where you were. I had to find out from MacCready where the hell you'd gone, and even that news was years’ old.” He paced before her, the same old beaten to shit red frockcoat over the same shirt. The same flag riding his hips like a sash, the same combat knife slung through it. Well, no not the same knife…

“You’re not wearing it,” she said suddenly, and then could have bitten her tongue. She didn’t care, did she? She _shouldn’t_ care.

“What?” he asked, indignant at being interrupted and somewhat befuddled by the question itself.

“Kremvh’s Tooth. You’re not wearing it.”

“That’s seriously what you’re focusing on right now?” he just about exploded, a bare eyebrow raised in disbelief. “I’m trying to make a point here.”

She turned her scarred face up to his and had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch from the marks as the light hit them. “Why aren’t you wearing it?” she asked in a small voice. She’d given him that knife, had gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to get it, in fact.

Hancock sighed. “Sunshine…”

“Never mind. It’s not important. And don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that anymore.” She pushed to her feet, facing him down. They were the same height. It used to be a source of amusement between them, now it just gave her positional leverage. “Look, Hancock. You don’t want me here, fine. I won’t be here long. But I’m waiting for someone. And I bought that property when no one else wanted it, fair and square. So unless you’ve sold it out from under me, or burned it down, I’m just gonna go there and sleep in my own goddamned bed and stay out of your way ‘til I got what I came for. Good enough?”

“Who are you waiting for?”

“Some friends, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Everything that passes through that gate is my business.”

“Still ruling on high, I see?”

“Yeah, in this town Mayor _does_ equal dictator.” He frowned, a singularly fearsome expression from a man who’d rarely been displeased with her. But she stared it down. She’d seen more frightening things in her time than an angry Hancock.

“Does it really matter so much if I’m here in my own house?”

“Yeah. It means you’re here, getting in my way, messing with my town. You never could resist messing with my town.”

“And you paid me well for it,” she jabbed. His frown deepened, as if he was remembering just how he’d paid her. It certainly wasn’t with caps. She had her own memories and they stung.

 _What’s done is done_ , she thought.

“I don’t need you here, Valara. I got enough troubles.”

“I know.” She said it softly. She’d heard rumors, had even chased a few of them in her hunt to solve her own troubles. It seemed like there was never an end to troubles in the Commonwealth. She’d done her good deed, blown up the Institute, made settlements where folk could live free and safe and make something of themselves other than raiders and scum. It was never enough.

He waved a hand at her. “Forget it. Take your damn caps, I don’t need’em. The house is still yours, I didn’t burn it down. Make no guarantees on the condition it’s in, but hey, that’s not my problem, right?”

“Right,” she replied after a moment. He turned his back on her and she left, gathering up the ammo bag full of caps on her way. She guessed some things _did_ change; they were still there after all.

The entrance to the Third Rail was just across the tiny central square from her house and she hurried across the space to escape the notice of the drifters and Triggermen Hancock still apparently employed as Neighborhood Watch. Her key still worked, he hadn’t lied about that. She flipped the breaker in the fuse box and the lights came on, one by one. Upstairs she heard the jukebox start, scratchy at first, but clearing out as the old machinery warmed up.

He hadn’t lied about the mess either, she saw as soon as she stepped into the workshop. Benches, stations and terminals were still in their accustomed places, but layered with dust and grime from ten years of neglect. The shelves were still full of junk, some of it in pieces, some whole. She went back out and climbed the stairs to the living quarters. Everything smelled musty and unused. Everything looked gray and dingy. She rolled the cue ball across the worn felt of the pool table and watched it clear a stretch of green from under the dust. It clacked into the other balls with a solid sound and came to a stop. Rather like her, she thought. A clack and a stop. She didn’t bother trying to sit on any of the furniture; it was too dirty. She went into the bedroom instead and was assaulted by memories before she could shut them out.

_Ain’t been an easy road, but it was worth it to get to you._

_Look at you, I must still be dreamin’._

_Morning, Sunshine_.

“Stop it,” she murmured. “It’s over now.”

The bed had been stripped, but the sheets and covers were still where she stored them. She put down fresh and stripped off armor, boots and clothes. She collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.


	2. Forgetting

Hancock looked at the Jet inhaler in his hand, wondering whether it was worth hitting it or not. The older he got, the less it worked. He snorted to himself. Like he was old or something. Fifty five. Daisy would laugh her ass off to hear him call himself old. He missed Fahrenheit. He’d missed Valara too, if he was going to be honest. The two best things to ever happen to him and he’d lost them both.

Well, sort of. Wasn’t like Fahr was that far away. She was just in Covenant, ruling over her tiny little kingdom with a strong arm and a minigun. Still…he missed her presence.

“Goddamn it,” he swore, resting his head on the back of the tattered old sofa he’d kept all these years hoping she’d come back to claim it someday. He wasn’t sentimental about many things, but her? Even now there was no question. He hit the Jet, filled up his lungs with it, let it out slow. Let the world slow around him. Except that nothing was moving in his world anymore to begin with.

_Why aren’t you wearing it?_

Her voice had changed. It was full of gravel and spit and years of living in the harshness of their world. Or maybe that scar went deeper down her neck than he could see with her all armored up like a tank. Pretty body, he remembered. Smooth as silk, sweet as honey. Pale and unblemished after over two hundred years inside a cryo Vault. She didn’t look so sweet anymore. Between everything she went through in the Commonwealth and everything he’d missed in the last ten years, there was no telling who she was anymore.

The Capital Wasteland, he thought. What the ever living fuck was she doing down there? He’d never gotten a straight answer from MacCready. Something about his son, and taking care of business in his old haunt of Little Lamplight, but nothing specific. Nothing concrete. Mac was gone too, gone on to whatever passed for life after being a Gunner and a merc. He hadn’t seen the boy in nearly five years. Not that he’d tried all that hard. He could be anywhere now. Probably in one of her settlements. Probably married to a girl and popping out kids left and right, the way most folks were doing now that it was safer to do so. The boom in population after the Institute’s destruction had even spilled over into Goodneighbor. They’d had to start a fucking school to educate all the resident kids. They’d become _civilized_.

And now Valara Thorsgaard was back, drinking in his bar, staying in his town. For a moment he wondered what it meant. He forcibly stopped himself from thinking about it. She wasn’t his concern anymore. He had to remember that. He’d had every intention of tossing her ass right out of the gate, but he hadn’t. He even turned down her caps. He hadn’t been lying; he didn’t actually need them. He had no doubt the full reckoning of ten years’ worth of caps was in that bag; Val was nothing if not obsessively detail oriented. Why was she here? What did she want?

“Fuck me, why do I care?” he said aloud to the empty room. He sighed and dragged his hat over his face, blocking out the light, the room and the world.

***

In the morning he scrubbed down his face, ate something vaguely stale from a box on the shelf and went out on his balcony. He could see her place from there, could see into the windows that had been shuttered for so long it almost didn’t seem like anyone had lived there at all. They were open now, and music drifted out of them from her jukebox. He heard her singing along to it, her voice scratchy and broken. She was cleaning.

 _Does that mean she’s staying?_ he thought to himself. _Why would she be cleaning if she wasn’t staying? Why do I care? She left me_.

If he let himself, he would remember being there with her in that house. Sharing a space she’d redecorated after Skinny Malone’s death. He would remember helping her rearrange the furniture to where she wanted it. He would remember quiet evenings with comics and books she scavenged from everywhere she could. He would remember passionate nights – and sometimes days – where they blocked out the world to narrow it down to just the two of them.

Nah, better to forget. Better to get past it and forget. Those days were gone, that blissful happiness was over.

Somehow he was at her door, banging on it impatiently. When it opened he saw the full extent of the scars. She was dressed only in a ratty, dirty tank top and combat pants. The ridged marks went down her neck, over her left collarbone and disappeared under the material of her top. He swallowed hard; she had nearly died out there.

“What?” she demanded. “I’m busy.”

“Can I…can we talk?”

“About what?” she scoffed, but stepped aside to let him in anyway.

He passed into the shadows of the hall and felt the years slide away. For just a moment it was a decade ago and they’d just returned from one mission or another for her beloved Minutemen. She’d always said Goodneighbor was her favorite place because it was past the reach of Preston Garvey. But she’d say it with a laugh, because she adored that man and would bend over backwards to help out her communities. She had loved being the General of the Minutemen, loved feeling like she was making a difference on the ground.

The happy memory burst like a bubble. She’d already gone back up the stairs; he heard the jukebox shut off. He followed, wondering what he’d see when he got to the top. The impact of seeing her in this house was hard and he had to concentrate to keep breathing. Everything was the same, albeit dirtier. It looked like she’d been cleaning off the pool table. The cue and balls were lined up neatly in a row, each polished to a gleaming shine. She had a brush in her hand and was sweeping it across the ancient felt, raking up the dust and grime from ten years’ worth of abandonment. He watched her as she moved methodically over the table, half bent, arm braced as she swept. The jagged, raking scar twisted as she moved. It was old enough that it didn’t give her pain, he saw.

“Deathclaw?” he asked as casually as he could.

“Yeah,” she replied without sparing him a glance. “Must be…oh, seven years ago?”

“Damn.” It was the best he could come up with. “How?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s not like me to be careless, right? Well, the DC deathclaws make ours look like mildly rambunctious kittens.” She stopped brushing the felt and touched the scar lightly. “And when you’re outnumbered three to one…fuck, shit happens.”

“You took on three by yourself?”

“No, I said I was outnumbered three to one. Never said I was alone.” She turned away and went into the kitchen, coming back out with a dustpan and her garbage pail. She swept up the pile of dust she’d gathered and dumped it without saying another word. He took the chance to look over the rest of the room. She’d already cleaned off the sofa and the coffee table. She’d wiped down the old television on its stand, useless without a signal coming from anywhere, but she’d always joked about the aesthetic, that a living room needed a TV. Sunlight poured through the open windows, bringing fresh air in to flush out the old mustiness. If she’d slept last night, it hadn’t been long for her to have gotten this far in her clean up.

“So how many were there?”

“What?”

“How many?”

“Nine.” She said it flatly. Once upon a time he would have known what she was thinking about, but this woman was a stranger. He could read nothing in her expression, nothing in her body language. It burned in his gut how much she’d changed.

“Jesus, Sunshine…” She stopped at that, her eyes slicing over to him. They were cold and hard, the way they’d been those last few days before she’d left. The nickname had just slipped out, naturally. He waited to hear her chide him for it, but she didn’t. Instead she leaned on her hands against the polished wood rail of the pool table and hung her head.

“Why did you come here today, Hancock? I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I dunno. I was at your door before I knew what I was doing. Old habit, I guess.”

She quirked a grin, but there was little humor in it. “Old habits die hard.”

“Yeah.” He stepped up next to her and before he could stop himself, he brushed a stray lock of her hair away from her face where it had escaped the simple ponytail she wore. Her hair was dark again, almost black. He remembered when she used to dye it bright colors, green, pink, blue. There was no longer any sign of it having been dyed. Ten years was long enough for it have completely grown out.

She tilted her head towards him, and her eyes weren’t cold. Not anymore. “What are you…?”

He crushed her mouth with his, pushing her around to face him fully. He half expected her to shove him away, but she didn’t. She met him, teeth on his lower lip, growling in her throat. It had been too much to expect that this wouldn’t happen as soon as she got back. The invisible cord between them had always pulled them like this. From day one.

He waited for her to push him, to tell him no, to do anything to stop him. She didn't. She just pulled him closer.

They wrestled and tussled for dominance, ending up on the bare floor. They pulled and tugged each other’s clothing until it was all gone. It was angry and brutal and, God, did it feel good. He slammed her back into the cement and spread her legs wide, filling her up with his cock until he could go no further. She didn’t fight him. She was wet and hot and welcoming.

He fucked her with all the pent up rage he’d been carrying for ten years and it was surprising she didn’t split in half from it. But no, she hooked a leg over his and flipped them over so she was on top. She rode him, pinning his hands to the floor beside his head, her body flushed and sweaty. Now that she was naked he could see the scars ran almost to her belly, marring the perfection of one breast. He wanted to lick and suck and kiss her better, but she held herself away from his reach, grinding her hips into his. He’d forgotten how strong she was, but he was stronger.

He threw her off of him, and she landed in a sprawl with a sneer on her face. He laughed shortly, hollowly, and dragged her onto her knees, sliding back into her heat from behind. She bucked against him wildly, her fingers clawing at the hard floor. He pounded into her, like he was punishing her. Or was it himself? She’d grown tighter, and he knew all too well what that meant. He didn’t slow his pace, didn’t gentle his hands on her hips. He fucked her until she came, keening high and squeezing around his cock like a vise. It tipped him over the edge and he filled her, dragging every last ounce of cruel pleasure from her that he could.

He panted over her back, wondering if this had changed anything. She crawled away from him without any regard for his cock still inside her. He slid out of her with a wet sound and a sensation almost like pain it was so intense on his over stimulated head. He saw his come leak out of her and trickle down her legs.

“Get out,” she said hoarsely, not looking at him. She stood up and stumbled to her bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

He gathered up his things and went.


	3. Reunion

There wasn’t enough hot water to wash away her self-castigation. There wasn’t enough to wash away the feel of him, the familiar rasp and drag of his skin on hers, of his hard length snugly encased in her flesh. God, it had been good. She stifled her sobs, wondering even as she did it _why_ she was doing it. It wasn’t like there was anyone to hear her cry. Anyone to care if she broke down. Only herself.

“I will not go back,” she muttered fiercely. “I can’t.”

_I got you, what else do I need?_

The memory burned hot and painful. Especially since he’d just left her shaking with release but not satisfaction. She slammed a fist into the tiled wall of the shower.

“Fuck!” she swore, smoothing her sore knuckles.

She finished her shower and got out, feeling the chill on her skin from the open windows in the living room. She toweled off and went into her bedroom, rifling through her pack to find clean clothes. Once she was dressed she curled up on the sofa and blankly stared at the spot where they’d fucked like animals, like dying things that couldn’t keep off each other if they wanted to live. Like…

No, not like lovers. That wasn’t love.

A younger, more naïve version of Valara would have been ashamed to be taken like that. She would have been embarrassed and humiliated. She wasn’t that woman anymore. There was no room for shame in her anymore. No room for regret. One might even say there was no room for passion.

There was a knock at the door. She pulled herself up, feeling her legs twinge from the unaccustomed exertion - as well as some scrapes and bruises she knew she'd regret later - as she went down the stairs to answer it. She hoped it wasn’t Hancock, hoped he wasn’t standing there with puppy dog eyes begging for forgiveness. She had none to spare just yet. Not that she would actually have been complaining, but...she didn't have to let him know that.

She was reprieved, she saw when she opened the door. She was engulfed in a bone crushing hug from a tall man with sandy blond hair and a whispering smile. Another man - a red haired ghoul - stood behind him, waiting his turn.

“Valley Girl,” the blond man crooned in her ear and she forced a laugh. When she pulled back it wasn’t so forced anymore. Nothing could cheer her up better than these two faces.

“Hunk-o-Hank,” she returned. He released her into the grasp of his companion and she was folded warmly into the tall, heavily muscular embrace of Charon. “Hey baby, what’s shakin’?”

“Hey, Sweetpea,” Charon said gruffly. It was disconcerting to hear endearments fall from his mouth. By all appearances Charon was angry, hard and emotionless. Val knew different. She tipped back her head and met his gentle kiss before resting her head on his shoulder. She blocked out the feel of Hancock’s mouth on hers, brutal, punishing and…perfect.

“No trouble then, getting here?”

“None we couldn’t handle.” Hank closed the door and she led them both upstairs.

“Welcome to Casa de Thorsgaard,” she said.

“Wow, Val, this place is huge.” Hank walked around the pool table examining it closely. He took in the array of furniture and racks of comics and shelves of books and mementos of her past. He even peeked into her kitchen and saw the table with its mismatched chairs and shelves piled high with sealed food, the empty hydroponic gardens and the still working appliances. “Better than anything we had in DC.”

“I can’t take the credit. I bought it as is when I...back then.”

“No trouble with the Mayor?” Charon asked, soft and quiet as usual. A lanky bit of reddish hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it away impatiently.

“No…no trouble.” She lied with a straight face, knowing Charon wouldn’t care if she told them they’d fucked on the floor like savages. Hank wouldn’t either. That wasn’t why she lied. She just didn’t want to have to put into words the utter turmoil being back in her old home had brought. “Your hair is getting long again.”

“I know.”

“Didn’t want to let Hank near you with the scissors?” And she grinned at him. He growled but didn’t reply. It was reply enough. Hank was notoriously bad with hair cutting.  Charon might not have much hair, but what he did have he took some small pride in. “Poor baby. C’mon, I’ll fix it.”

“I don’t know why I put up with you two Vault dwellers.”

“Well, I hope you know why you put up with me?” she teased, pushing Charon into the kitchen and into a chair at the table. “So, Hank, tell me what you think of the Commonwealth.”

“It’s a mess,” the former resident of Vault 101 said, flipping a chair around to straddle it backwards. He watched as Val snipped off the long ends of Charon’s hair, marveling once more at how calm the ghoul was in her presence. When she was done she slid easily into Charon’s lap and his strong arms held her as if it was perfectly natural to be having a conversation this way. Not much ruffled the feathers of Charon. And from what Hank could tell, Val needed comforting. The kind he couldn’t give her.

“Gee thanks. I’m glad all that slaving away for two long years to build this place up from scratch is so noticeable.”

“Not what I meant, Val,” Hank continued, shaking a finger at her. “That Glowing Sea, what the shit is that?”

“That is our very own nuclear apocalypse site. It’s still radioactive because there’s a missile silo down there leaking uranium all over the place. We’ve never been able to get at it to clean it up.”

“Shit,” Hank said in awe.

“You talk with your Mayor buddy yet?” Charon asked. Val stilled. She had never told him what her history had been with Hancock, and had only told Hank the barest minimum, but Charon had made a good guess, although he’d never asked for details. He wasn’t the jealous type, and their relationship wasn’t like that anyway. They gave each other companionship in the dark, and unstinting trust during the day, but not much else. Not like that.  The secrets of her heart were still her own.

“Not yet. Things are…we didn’t part well, ya know, back then. We don’t exactly have a steady foundation upon which to make polite conversation. I haven’t asked if anyone’s seen Gob, or knows anything. Hell, I only got here yesterday. You two made good time.”

“That’s because we weren’t stopping every five minutes to pick through random junk on the side of the road,” the ghoul replied. She made a face at him.

“That junk built almost everything you saw on your way up here. You like it when I build things, don’t you?”

“Only when you’re naked.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Ugh. Enough you two. God, get me a room if you’re gonna verbally fuck all the time.” Hank sounded sarcastic, but it was an act. He had been genuinely happy for his dour friend when she came along and gave him something to care about. And he knew no one would dare call her a dirty ghoulfucker after the last…example…she’d made of someone who did. No matter how casual their partnership was, it still mattered and they treated it with respect.

“Ooh, I think someone’s jealous,” she cooed.

Hank snorted. “Not likely. Charon’s not my type. And neither are you, Valley Girl.”

“Pbtht,” she raspberried at him. “Maybe you’ll get lucky up here.”

“Maybe.”

She sighed and hopped off Charon’s lap. “Right, well, now that you guys are here, we can get started. I want to ask around town just in case, because honestly, this is the biggest settlement for ghouls in the Commonwealth. There’s the Slog too, and I’ll want to get there sooner or later, but the best place to search is actually Diamond City. They are not overly fond of ghouls, so I don’t expect to find him there, but I have some friends who can help.”

“That android detective you were telling us about?” Hank asked.

“Yeah. And they’re called _synths_. Nick Valentine. There’s Piper too. She’s a reporter and she usually hears all the dirt before anyone else.”

“That or she makes it up, right?” Hank went on with a grin. He knew how the media worked. Three Dog always seemed to know about him before anyone else, that was for damned sure.

“Pretty much.” Val bustled around the room, putting together some things to make food. “How tired are you two? Need a night to rest or shall we get right to it?”

“Whatever. I’m good,” Hank said. Charon said nothing, in typical Charon way. He didn’t complain or volunteer much when it came to himself. Val was his only exception.

“Well, let’s eat and then we can hop over to the Rail, ask some questions.”

“Sounds like a plan.”


	4. Questions

The Third Rail was pretty quiet for a spring night, Hancock noticed, but that was all right. It suited his mood to be alone. He brooded into a glass of whatever it was that Charlie had concocted for him and tried not to think about what happened earlier.

 _Get out_.

He should never have gone in. He should never have touched her, and most certainly should not have fucked her. It didn’t matter that it felt so good he just wanted to do it again. It didn’t matter that no amount of chems could erase the sound of her high pitched wail when she came. It didn’t even matter that he felt empty and soulless walking back to the State House afterwards, like he’d left his bleeding heart on her floor instead of bodily fluid.

He sighed. He knew this was why he wanted to throw her out the gate. He should have done it. He did _not_ need her storming back into his life when he’d finally gotten it where he wanted it. Nobody came looking for him anymore to get to her, no one bothered him with questions about her location. Nobody cared that he was just her leftovers; they all were. He wondered if Preston even knew she was back in the Commonwealth or if she’d bypassed the Castle to come straight to Goodneighbor. Not like he was going to ask. If he could help it, he wasn’t going to see her at all.

He tipped back his glass and chugged the vile stuff in it, and happened to see the trio as they came down the stairs. There was Val, backed on each side by a strange ghoul and a strange human.

“Just…fuck me,” he muttered. Of all the luck. He stayed in the shadows of his private alcove, away from Magnolia’s bright lights and the haphazard tables and chairs set out for patrons. He stayed where he was and watched as Val went up to Charlie and ordered herself a drink. She slid onto ‘her’ barstool and waited patiently for her companions to order theirs. Well, she’d said she was waiting for someone. Now he knew who they were.

He studied the tall, blond man. His skin was weathered like hers, but he wasn’t old. Val’s age, give or take a year or two. He was unbent and calm. Careful about his surroundings. He remembered when Val was like that too; a stranger in a new strange place. Not from the Commonwealth, then. He’d lay odds he was a Vault dweller, to boot. Just something about him screamed it, same as her. Something about the texture of their skin, even grimy and dirty. Even after as many years as he knew she’d been above ground. He would guess this stranger had been on the surface a lot longer than she had. The ghoul stood next to Val, his piercing blue eyes visible even to Hancock in the shadows. He was tall, too. Taller than any ghoul he’d ever met. Broad shouldered, mean looking and…touching her.

And she leaned into his touch. Like she used to lean into his.

 _Get out_.

He’d never even asked her if there was someone else. It never occurred to him that she might have been away so long because she’d found love with a new man. A new ghoul, it seemed. His gut burned, and not from Charlie’s drink. He needed to get away, and pushed off his metro bench and made for the stairs before anyone saw…

“Hancock.” Her voice carried clearly through the nearly empty bar. It was steady and casual. No malice, no underlying temper, no bite. Just his name. He turned and faced her. “I was hoping we’d find you here.”

He couldn’t very well walk away if she had been looking for him. It was one thing to rant and rave and want to kick her sweet ass to the curb, it was another entirely to act like he was affected by her at all in front of Magnolia and Charlie and the two drifters watching this unfold. He plastered a grin on his mouth and walked over to them.

“Gonna introduce me, Valara?” he said, and was proud of his own smooth delivery. No worries, no emotion. Just good ol’Hancock, junkie Mayor of Goodneighbor, always ready for a good time.

“Of course,” she replied, and he could have sworn he saw dimples in her cheek. Everything else might have changed, but she could still read him like a book. “Mayor Hancock, this is Charon,” the ghoul, “and Henry Neeson, otherwise known as Hank, the one and only Lone Wanderer from Vault 101.”

Hancock put out his hand and the former Vault dweller took it without hesitation. “I’ve heard of you,” he said.

“I’ve heard of _you_ ,” the man called Hank replied.

“Project Purity, right? MacCready told me all about it.”

“You helped Val take down the Institute, right?”

“Well, in the beginning,” Hancock said with a light, easy tone, burying his long burning anger at how things ended up with a well-practiced grin. From the corner of his eye he saw Val sit up straighter; she’d caught it, just like she’d caught his attempt to sneak away unseen.

“Huh, so that little shit MacCready is still around?” Hank said, raising his eyebrows. Hancock grinned involuntarily, momentary lapse into the past forgotten. He liked this guy already.

“He’s somewhere, I’m sure.”

“You haven’t seen him?” Val interrupted the male bonding sharply. There was worry in her eyes, that much was clear. “Dammit.”

“Were you lookin’ for him?”

“Hoping, more like.” She shook her head; it was unimportant. “I do have a question for _you_ , though. Didn’t get to it…earlier.” Her eyes were flat again and he was shut out. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. _Get out_. “Anyone turn up missing lately? Anyone ghoulish, I mean?”

“Not around here. Why?”

“How about new faces?”

“None come to mind.” She exchanged a glance with her companions, some silent communication passed between them he was not privy to. He wondered idly if this was how it felt with others when they had been together. “Valara, what’s this about?”

She sighed and sipped her drink, as if fortifying herself. It was the ghoul Charon who took over, his hand clamped on Val’s shoulder like a vise, or a lifeline.

“We’re tracking a friend of ours, name of Gob. Left Megaton to find his mother, never made it. Last clue we had, he was no longer in the DC wasteland.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Hancock focused his question to Val. She nodded.

“We’ve heard of some other disappearances too. All ghouls, no witnesses, nothing reported. Tell me, is there really that much prejudice still?”

“C’mon, Val, what do you think? People ain’t gonna get over rad freaks any time soon. You weren’t gone that long.”

She shrugged, an eloquent motion of disappointment. “I had hoped with all the Minutemen settlements things might have…gotten better in that regard.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you still a Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel?” He allowed a little bitterness to color his tone and saw both the ghoul and the human stiffen beside her, defensive. He wanted to laugh. Did they not know or did they think she needed protecting? Either way meant they didn’t know her half as well as they thought they did.

“You know I never followed their ideology.” There was a glint in her eye he recognized well. Every fight they’d had over the Brotherhood had ended with that look.

“I know that fucking huge ass flying ship is still occupying our air, and Elder Shitwit with it.”

“Hancock…” she sighed, then didn’t continue. She just drank down her cocktail and stood up. “C’mon guys, this is pointless.”

“Have you tried Nick?” he asked in a conciliatory way. He had almost reached out a hand to stop her from leaving, but refrained. He noted Charon watching him, however, as if the tall ghoul knew.

“He’s on our list. I just wanted to try here first. Ghoul friendly town, ya know?” She tilted her head and it was so reminiscent of earlier, happier times he nearly smiled. He settled for nodding instead and let them go past him. Val hung back for just a second as if she had something she still wanted to say but didn’t have the courage.

“I hope you’re all right,” Hancock murmured low enough that it didn’t carry. She stiffened again; her guard was resolutely in place.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” she scoffed, and it would have seemed lighthearted and genuine but for the bitterness in her eyes.

“Val…”

“Goodnight, Mayor,” she said firmly and walked away.

“Charlie,” Hancock called once they were gone. “Give me the biggest bottle we have. I need to get shitfaced.”


	5. Memory

The sound of her own screaming woke her from a dead sleep. She hadn’t actually been screaming, only remembering, only reliving it in her dreams. Charon was asleep beside her, and she could hear Hank snoring out on the sofa. She never had gotten around to fixing up the top floor to make into guest rooms. She slipped away from Charon’s warmth and sat down naked at the blinking terminal on the desk, lost in the memory.

_They’d been so fast, so fast. She knew deathclaws. Well, she thought she knew them. Loud, aggressive, relentless. But these…these were faster than anything she’d seen in her five years since waking in the Vault. And in a pack formation that was undeniably instinctual and well honed. Commonwealth deathclaws were loners._

_She remembered Hank blowing their formation to shit with a missile launcher, picking off two of them with the first shot. They weren’t dead, just wounded enough that they lagged behind. Her every shot seemed useless; they just kept coming. Charon was blasting away with his shotgun, shouting and trying to get their attention focused on him, the crazy fucker. She lifted her own missile launcher and lurched back with the recoil as it plowed into their midst, blowing off chunks that only made them angrier._

_“Jesus…” she’d breathed, and then they were on her. The biggest raked her from her scalp on down to her body armor, shredding it as easily as it shred her skin._ No guts, no glory _, she’d thought and launched another missile at point blank range. She was certain she was dead, but then she woke, stitched, stimpaked and shot up with who knew how much Med-X. Hank and Charon were there, both relatively uninjured…well less injured than she. They’d carried her to the upper story of some half caved in building._

_“How many are still out there?” she’d asked after Hank held out some water for her._

_“Four.”_

_“Think we can do it or make a run for it?” He turned his head and looked her over with a critical eye. He was the experienced one in that situation, she would defer to his judgement._

_“It’s hard to outrun a deathclaw,” he’d said. “Especially with you so hurt.”_

_“So what do we do?”_

_“We wait until dark, then pick them off one by one. So far they haven’t tracked us here.”_

_“And they don’t jump well,” Charon had offered in his quiet way._

_“All right,” she’d said and tried to sit up. Her whole left side felt like it was on fire, but everything moved, everything was there. “I have a sniper rifle in here.”_

_She remembered pulling it out, setting the missile launcher aside. They packed a lot of punch, but in her state she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel that recoil again. No sense in undoing all of Hank’s first aid work. And they’d waited. The deathclaws had milled around, doing whatever it was they do. In between ruined buildings and strangely clean streets they watched them, hearing occasional roars and scrapes along the ground as the males fought each other for dominance._

_“Remind me why we came to this place?” she’d asked at one point. Hank grinned and Charon just sat, stoic._

_“For the glory, of course.”_

_“You’re foolhardy, ya know that?” she’d retorted._

_“I see one,” he’d said, ignoring her assessment of him. He had moved into position to snipe it across the distance, the report of his rifle slow and loud in the silence of the nest. She’d thought for sure the others would come, that he’d blown their cover, but they didn’t._

_Methodically, over the course of hours, she and Hank and Charon whittled down the creatures until they were all dead. Hank stripped their bodies of skin, hands and meat. And she just shook her head. The glory. Well, she must have wanted some of it too; she’d agreed to go to the Deathclaw Sanctuary, after all_ …

“Hey, Sweetpea, why you up?” Charon’s voice brought her out of the memory.

“Nightmares,” she replied. He just grunted. No one knew nightmares like Charon. She folded her knees up onto the edge of her chair and wrapped her arms around them. She realized it was chilly sitting there in nothing but her skin. One thing the DC wasteland had going for it – it was warmer.

“C’mere,” Charon said in the darkness. She sighed and got back into bed. He wrapped her up his warmth, his gentleness at odds with his emotionless facade. He stroked her hair back from her face and trailed his fingers over the scars.

“Why do I always think I can escape things?” she mused into the darkness. She felt him shrug. A normal person would ask her what she was trying to escape, but he didn’t. He just held her tight, his steady presence a balm and a wall upon which to lean. After a while his touch turned from comforting to sensual and she smiled in the dark. “Erase it for me?” she pleaded.

He lowered his head to kiss her and it was rough enough that Hancock’s memory was banished. He rarely had to ask her what she needed from him; he just gave it. He rolled on top of her, bracing his weight on his arms, sliding between her legs. It was strange when she thought about it; she’d spent more time with Charon than she had with Hancock, yet the memory of him remained fresh and unalleviated as if no time had passed at all.

He entered her slowly, giving her time to adjust. He wasn’t just a _taller_ ghoul than any she’d met before…

“More Charon,” she gasped. “I can take it.”

He wordlessly obliged, filling her until she was straining, until she felt like she was splitting open. He pounded at her, making her body jump, making the bed protest. She knew they had probably woken up Hank, or maybe not. He was used to it by now. She closed her eyes and for one perfect moment she was content to have Charon’s hands on her body, to have him fill her until she could take no more. She let the rising tide of her orgasm carry her off to a place where there was no Hancock, no painful past, no recriminations, no guilt. She knew it wouldn’t last – it never did – but for now, for this one single gasping moment, it was enough.

Charon followed her to his own release, groaning in her ear, pressing kisses along her throat and she wrapped her arms tight around him, holding him in place so he wouldn’t see her crying. He knew; he always knew.

Afterwards he held her in his arms as she slept, dreamlessly and still. His eyes mapped the ceiling. If he had any thoughts or secrets to share, he kept them to himself.

***

Hank was already up when she stepped out of her room in the morning. He sat at the kitchen table, cradling a mug of something steaming and nondescript. They both missed coffee, but made due with whatever steeped concoction was available. In this case, hubflowers and wild mutfruit.

“It’s different, I’ll give it that. Not bad, just…different.”

She poured herself a mug of it too and sat down next to him. “Hubflowers have a fair amount of something resembling caffeine. Yes, the taste takes getting used to, but it works.”

“Cap for your thoughts?” he drawled after she'd taken a few sips.

She sighed. “Not sure they’re worth that much.”

“C’mon, Val. This is me you’re talking to. You think I don’t know what it’s like to come back to a place that was home? A place you left behind, never intending to return to? Faces you never thought would haunt you again?”

“What faces haunt you?” she asked softly.

“Ah ah, we’re not talking about me.” He took her hand in his. “So, ghouls really have always done it for you, huh?”

“Would you believe me if I said they were the first thing I saw in this world that made sense in a fucked up way?”

“Yeah. Not many would agree, but you and I, we remember things a little differently. Sure, I’m not pre-war, but I might as well be for all that I grew up with and left behind in 101. We had clean air, clean water, tech, medical facilities…you name it. With everything I’ve learned about Vault-Tec, I think 101 is the only place that didn’t have kind of evil experiment going on. Sort of like a control group.” He chuckled. “The first ghoul I ever met was Gob. He freaked me out, but then, once I got to talking with him, I saw he was just another guy. A highly irradiated one, but still, just a guy trying to make the best of his life. Moriarty was a bastard and a half. I have never mourned the ‘accident’ that gave Gob his freedom.”

“Did he really overdose?” Val asked slyly.

“Sure did.”

“Was he _aware_ that he was overdosing?” she added a layer of sarcastic sweetness and he smiled but didn’t answer one way or the other. “My first ghoul was a drifter who came to Sanctuary Hills following my beacon. She was a lovely little person, tidy and quiet. She’d been on her own so long she’d forgotten what it was like to be in a safe place. She told me finally that she’d hung around outside the settlement walls for two days, watching others come in and be welcomed before she convinced herself to try her luck.”

“She still there?”

“Probably. Who knows?” Val leaned back in her seat and shook her head. “A lot can change in ten years.”

“Yes, it can.” They both went back to their hubflower tea and enjoyed the quiet. Finally, Hank looked at her and nudged her arm. “Don’t break his heart, Val. He’s got one underneath all that stern, bluff surface shit.”

“I know it. I…pfft, I dunno what I was gonna say. You want to know more about my history with Hancock? Fine, I’ll tell you.” She took a deep breath. “The first time we met he killed a guy for me. Finn. His name was Finn. He was trying to get caps from me for protection, you see. Hancock didn’t like that, so he stabbed him in the gut and let him bleed out in the street. Then he looked at me and told me Goodneighbor was my new home away from home.” She laughed. “You should have seen me then, Hank. God what a little mess I was. Shy, hesitant, scared of everything. But this guy…this effortlessly charming ghoul in a beat up old frockcoat with his swagger and his cavalier attitude…he touched something I thought was dead inside me.”

She went silent and finished the dregs of her tea. “And then?”

“Oh, after a few weeks we got chummy, then I ended up on Fahrenheit’s radar doing a job for some bitch with a grudge against him.  Fahr used to be his bodyguard.  Anyway, I begged forgiveness for my sins and ended up traveling the Commonwealth with him. He knew everyone, had been everywhere. He took chems and drank like it was going out of style. He was everything Nate had not been, attitude, looks for sure, his zest for life. He was electrifying, sexy, confident. It was an act too, but I didn’t know that then. It wasn’t hard to hand him my heart on a silver platter.”

“True love, post-apocalyptia style,” Hank said sardonically.

She grinned, but it was sad. “Yeah, something like that.”

She got up and took their empty mugs to the sink, rinsing them out and stacking them to dry. “We had a good run, I suppose. By the time I knew I needed to get into the Institute to find my stolen baby…well, I’d gotten pretty close to some of the Brotherhood soldiers here and it just seemed natural to ask them for help.”

“That Elder of theirs seems a bit…harsh...from what I've heard.”

“He is. Or was, I have no idea if he’s still that way. I wish I’d known Elder Lyons. Either of them. Sounds like I would have gotten along a lot better with them. Maybe things might have been different.”

“Hancock has a low opinion of the Brotherhood, I take it?”

“Can you blame him? I don’t. They called him filth to his face. But I needed them. I was in too deep and I needed them.” She sighed, her back still to her friend. In nine years of traveling with Hank and Charon, she’d never told either of them this much. “I helped them rebuild Liberty Prime, and when it came time to arm him…well, remember that missile silo I told you about in the Glowing Sea?”

“Yeah.”

“They had Mark 28 nuclear warheads there, in the part we could still get into. Just the right size for an overgrown capitalist robot. Hancock didn’t want to me go, didn’t want me to give the Brotherhood that much firepower. 'It’s for the greater good', I told him. He wasn’t convinced, and when it came down to it, he wouldn’t go with me. I ended up going with Paladin Danse, and had to leave him there to guard them when we found the place.”

“And in the end you did what you had to do.”

“Sure, I tell myself that every day.” She turned finally and leaned a hip against the counter, facing Hank. Her eyes were wet but hard. “When I got home, I find out that Danse had gone AWOL. Hancock accused me of caring more about trying to find my son than I did about him. And Preston tried to guilt trip me because I hadn’t gone to him for help instead. I mean, they weren’t wrong, precisely. I _should_ have gone to Preston for help. I _did_ care more about finding Shaun than anything else.”

“He shouldn’t have expected any less,” Hank interjected. Val waved her hand dismissively.

“It’s neither here nor there at this point. I went to the Prydwen, talked Maxson out of finding Danse until after we were done with the Institute and we went and blew it sky high.” She lifted her chin, her face growing flat and closed. “And when it was all over, I left. I walked away from the man I loved, the outfit that had given me power and respect, and the outfit that had helped me kill my firstborn child. MacCready found me drowning my sorrows in some seedy little bar in Quincy and asked if I wanted to go with him to DC, to collect his son so he could raise him here in relative safety. You know the rest.”

“You left out one tiny but rather significant detail, Valley Girl.”

“What’s that?”

“You still love Hancock.”

She stared bleakly at Hank. “What does it matter if he doesn’t love me back?”


	6. Caps

“Daisy! How’s my best girl?” Hancock sauntered up to her counter and leaned on it. Normally she would have greeted him with one of her sunny smiles and a hug, but this was not a normal day apparently.

“Need something from me, John?”

“Whoa, where’s that coming from?”

“You forgot, didn’t you? You forgot that my back wall butts up against her back wall. I heard her tell you to get out, and then I heard her crying in her shower. What did you do?” Daisy was frowning, and it was nearly as fearsome as when he did it himself.

“You always did have a soft spot for her, didn’t ya?”

“Answer me, John.”

“Nothin' that wasn’t mutual,” he growled. She made a face but she couldn’t discredit him. If she’d heard Val kick him out, then she had to have heard what happened before.

After a moment, she sighed. “Now, I’ve seen you go through a lot of shit in this town, and I’ve seen you clean up your act for that little Vault dwelling super hero. You made yourself worthy of her before it all went to shit. And then she was gone. I know it had to sting.”

“And she’ll be gone again, too,” he spat. “She ain’t stayin’. She doesn’t want me back. She ain’t even here to see me. Just lookin’ for some ghoul friend of hers from DC.”

“And…? What’s that got to do with what happened there the other day?”

“Think I would sink so low as to attack her, coerce her? Is that what you think of me?” He leaned in close, let her see the pain in his eyes. The longing that ten years had not diminished. “I love that woman. Lock, stock and barrel. I would have given her anything, everything. She didn’t want it. Not from me.”

“Oh, John,” Daisy said, then surprised him by bursting into laughter. “You’re both so young.” He looked affronted and she calmed down and put her hand on his arm. “Baby, that girl had too many hard choices to make all at once. And what did you do? You accused her of caring more about her son than she did about you. How'd you think that was gonna go? Ultimatums never work out too well for those that give them. You have a second chance here. Not many of us get to have that in this world.”

“Stuff if, Daisy, this ain’t up for discussion. What’s between us is over. She’s over it, obviously. Have you seen that tall, dangerous and brooding she’s got at her back?”

“I have. But I don’t think he’s any competition. He’s nothing more than a rest stop.”

“How do you know?”

“Her face is closed up like a forgotten book, but her eyes still tell a tale. Oh, she cares for him well enough,” and Hancock wondered what else Daisy had been overhearing, “but it ain’t enough. You give her a reason, and she’ll forget his name.”

“Huh, that doesn’t seem too likely. What reason do I have?”

Daisy appraised him with eyes as black as his. “You listen to me, John Hancock. You say you love her. You need to go in there and you tell her you’re sorry for ever trying to come between her duty as a mother and her love for you. You get on your knees if you have to and beg. I don’t care if her friends are there to witness it; might be good for you to eat some humble pie. And you help her find her friend.”

“Daisy…”

“Oh, I know it won’t be easy for you. Tell ya what, I’ll give you until I get back from this caravan run to work it out. She’s your match, Mayor. I didn’t think you ever needed reminding of that.”

“Why are you going on this run again?” he tried to steer the subject away from Valara. Daisy wasn’t fooled, but she didn’t persist, having spoken her piece.

“Too many things have gone missing the last few times. I need to oversee it myself. Don’t worry, I’ll only be gone a few weeks. It’s not like you don’t still have KLEO to keep the caps flowing.”

“Who are you taking with you?” If Daisy was going out on a run herself, she damned well better have a good gun at her back.

“MacCready.”

“Jesus, just when I think the world can’t get any smaller. Where’d you dig him up from?”

“From right where I knew he was. He’s been living at the Castle for years, ya know. Maybe you need to get out and stretch your legs again, Mayor. That tricorn must be getting a bit heavy if you don’t even know where your friends are.”

“I like it here,” he said stoutly.

She laughed in his face. “Baby, you’re scared. Hey, no blame. Only so much shit a man can wade through, even of his own doing. I thank God I’m not a man. It would be one thing if I thought that you’d gotten to sow all your wild oats with Val back in the day, but I don’t think that’s the case.” She eyed him again. She relented and laid a hand on him, gently and with her usual motherly love. “John, I get that it hurt to see her leave. It hurt all of us. The Commonwealth hasn’t been the same since. Not at its heart. You need to forgive her for it, and forgive yourself.”

“I can’t,” he mumbled, but she heard him. He wanted desperately to get away, to hide from his feelings and his fears. But it was Daisy, and she deserved better from him. “I chased her away because I was too weak to let her choose on her own. I lost any right to her.”

“If you can admit that, John, then you aren’t weak. Foolish maybe, but not weak.” She stepped back from him briskly and brushed off her hands. “Now, you wanna help me lock down this place so everything is right where I put it when I get back?”

“Sure, Daisy.”

“Am I still your best girl?” the old ghoul asked slyly.

“You bet your ass,” he replied with a grin and leer.

“Oh, John, you never change.”

 _Maybe that’s the problem_ , he thought. He hadn’t ever changed. _Maybe it’s time to_.

***

He had to move a chair and a bookcase to get at the safe he wanted to open, the safe he was fairly certain no one – aside from Fahr – even knew was there. It wasn’t the kind that opened with a key, or a bobby pin, he thought, ruefully remembering Val’s skills with picking locks. It had four rolling numbers.

0…2…1…6…

He’d never told her about that either. Never told her that the combination to his most prized possessions was the date she first stepped across the threshold of his town, the day they’d met. He withdrew the little black book and the small locked chest and other things that had no importance other than to himself until he found the long, narrow case. It was slim with hand tooled Brahmin leather wrapped around it. The hinges were brass, tarnished with age but only a little stiff.

The curved, jagged blade gleamed like new when he opened the case. It always looked new. He lifted it out and balanced it across his palms, careful not to nick himself. The poison in the blade was strong enough to affect even ghouls. The light seemed to flee from the edges, as if light itself could be cut by it. It was a hallowed, eldritch thing and he knew what she’d done to get it.

_Dunwich Borers. He would never forget it as long as he lived. That place could give a deathclaw nightmares. And it was worse the farther in they’d traveled. The shadows had moved wrong, and the ferals seemed cannier and eyes…always he’d felt eyes on him there. Val hadn’t seemed affected by it, hadn’t stopped to shudder convulsively every few feet like he had. She had read each terminal entry, scoured the place top to bottom until they’d gotten to the grotto._

I’m safe in the light, I’m safe in the light, I’m safe in the light _…_

 _The pool in the center had been still and silent and unearthly. The ground shook but no ripples chased themselves across that water. The ferals they’d dispatched had been hardy, unusually aggressive and_ clothed _, which was almost more disturbing to him than anything. Feral ghouls didn’t pay attention to things like clothes. They didn’t comprehend their surroundings. They didn’t kneel as if in prayer around a column of water that didn’t move._

_She’d popped the back of her power armor and stepped out, looking fresh and beautiful, her hair dyed a glowing green that matched the bioluminescent fungi all around. She had been drawn to that grotto, drawn to the water._

_“What are you doing, Sunshine?” he’d asked, subdued and ready to hoist her over his shoulder and run if need be._

_“There’s something here,” she’d said, dreamily and soft. “Can’t you hear it?”_

_He’d shivered involuntarily. Some strange spell had woven its way into her and he couldn’t break her from it. She eyed the pool and before he could do more than take a single step, she’d taken several hasty deep breaths, plummeted into the dark water and disappeared._

_He’d fallen to his knees, a mimicry of those ferals who’d been praying and counted the seconds as they ticked by. Occasional bubbles broke the surface, one by one, but there were no ripples. There was no Val._

_She broke the surface after a whole minute had gone by, the longest minute of his life, it had felt like. She’d gasped and sputtered, shoving her wet hair from her face as he’d pulled her from the hollow column of water. It sluiced off her body almost like oil. She held the blade in her hand, an obscene glow from it casting a shadow on the ground._

_Kremvh’s Tooth._

_“How did you know it was there?” he’d asked. She smiled, a light in her eyes that he would only later be able to describe as_ feral _, otherworldly and alien._

_“I heard it calling me,” she’d said._

_“Val…you okay?” He’d stepped to her side and gripped the wrist of the hand holding the blade, and then he could hear it too. It was a sinuous sound, like scales rubbing on each other, like the clicking of mirelurks before they attack, like the sound of deathclaws at rest, like the deepest, darkest growl of the earth itself._

_He took the blade from her hand and…_

_…it stopped._

_There was only silence._

_“Hancock?” she’d said, wonderingly. Like she was coming out of a dream._

_“Yeah, Sunshine?”_

_“The fuck just happened?”_

_“This place is well known to be haunted, love. Shall we get outta here?”_

_“Yeah.” She’d gotten back in her power armor, shivering in her wet clothes. “Hey, Hancock. I don’t think I should use that blade. You keep it, all right?”_

_He’d looked it over. He hadn’t felt a pull, or heard strange voices. Even the scintillating light it had been giving off seemed to have subsided in his hands. The blade might be cursed, but it seemed to only work on humans. “Sure, I’ll keep it. Probably better that way.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Why aren’t you wearing it?_ She’d sounded almost sad when she said it the other night and he had been too angry to notice.

He couldn’t stop and tell her that every time he wore it he thought of her, that he remembered that day in the quarry, the still water, the shaking earth. Every time he used it he remembered her eyes on him, glowing with love and pride. She loved teasing him about going after creatures in the Glowing Sea armed with nothing more than his shotgun and the craggy poisoned knife she’d given him. She loved watching him with a blade, any blade. She loved what he could with one when it was just the two of them.

As the weeks after her departure had turned to months, he’d caught himself looking over his shoulder too many times to see if she was watching, forgetting for a moment that she was no longer there. As the months turned to years he couldn’t stand the sight of Kremvh’s Tooth anymore. So he’d put it away.

He cradled the deadly dagger, ran his rough fingertips over the edge, light enough that he wasn’t cut. He could at least show her that he still had it. That he hadn’t forgotten it, or her. He placed it back in the box he’d had specially made for it and left the State House to cross the tiny courtyard to her door.

He knocked, but there was no answer. He stepped back and saw the lights were not on. He tried the door; it opened. And on the floor just inside, in plain view next to a burned out stub of a candle, was the military ammo bag full of caps. A scrap of paper lay next to it, folded over.

_Gone to Diamond City. Might be back if we don’t pick up any leads from Nick. Take your damned caps. ~V_

“Well, at least she left me a note,” he murmured out loud.

He hefted the ammo bag, mentally picturing her counting out each one with grim determination and took it with him. On his way out he cast a single lingering look over the workshop room, recalling better times when they’d worked side by side in the jumbled room. He was usually at the chem station, while she was on the weapons bench more often than not.

He shook his head musingly, and closed the door tight behind him.


	7. Changes

“Diamond City,” Val said as the high green wall came into sight.

“That’s some wall,” Hank said in awe. “Bigger than Megaton’s.”

“Sure is. It used to be a ballpark, before the war. Could hold over 35,000 people in its seats. Now the proud home to a straggling bunch of nitwits and racists.” She cocked her head to the side and shrugged. “But it’s also home to Nick Valentine, super sleuth, and Piper Wright, last known journalist of the Commonwealth. Gotta take the bad with the good, I guess.”

“They don’t like ghouls here,” Charon said suddenly. When Val whipped around to face him he frowned a little, almost abashed. “I heard it from the Watch.”

“Yeah, the old Mayor won by promising to kick them all out. He was Hancock’s brother…in another life.”

“What does that mean?” Hank asked as they wound their way through the various turrets and guard stations to the entrance of the settlement.

“Long story,” Val sighed.

“Stop right there,” a male voice shouted from behind a chain link fence. “No ghouls in Diamond City. We have a reputation to uphold.”

“Seriously?” Val muttered. “Who’s the Mayor now? Anyone I know?”

“Danny Sullivan is the Mayor. Who’s asking?”

Val cracked a grin and jingled a pouch at her hip. “How many caps is it gonna take to get you to get him down here and talk to me?”

“Lady, Diamond City security does not accept…”

“Save it, umpire, I’m not a stranger.”

“Then you should already be well aware of our policies…”

“Do you know who I am?” she interrupted the security officer again.

“Should I?” he scoffed back.

“I am Sentinel Valara Thorsgaard, General of the Minutemen and destroyer of the Institute. I’m the one who shot McDonough. I’m a friend of Nick Valentine’s and Piper Wright. You gonna get Danny now?”

“Lady, I don’t care who…”

“It’s all right, Baines,” a new voice said, sounding a little out of breath. A slight, red haired man puffed to a stop beside the security officer, his suit and tie disheveled, as if he’d dressed in a hurry.

“Danny,” Val greeted him.

“Damn, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Jesus, Valara, how long has it been?”

“Ten years…give or take.”

Danny grinned, the same one he’d had when he was just a kid in this chain link ‘office’. He turned to the guard. “I’ll vouch for anyone she has with her, Baines. Let them in.” The guard Baines grumbled under his breath but did as he was told. As soon as they were inside the towering entrance, Val found herself heartily embraced by the Mayor. “Does me good to see you again, Valara. Sorry about the rude greeting.  I'm working on the ghoul thing, but ya know, Upper Stands folk are tough customers.”

“Thanks, Danny. So, Mayor Sullivan, huh?”

He looked sheepish. “Someone had to do it.”

“It has a nice ring. Danny, this is Hank and Charon. They’re up from the Capital Wasteland. Nick still in town?”

“Of course.”

“All right.” She followed Danny up the main stairs into the city proper, stepping aside at the top to let the others catch up and get their first glimpse. Not much had changed, she noticed. The Market still was overcrowded and messy, the bases were still marked with faded paint, kids running them full pelt. There were a few new shacks built on the grass, and a few more up in the stands. Nat was still standing in front of Publick Occurrences, but she was no longer a child. She started to stare, then her face broke into a huge grin and she disappeared into the side door of her sister’s paper. Val knew Piper would soon be out to throw herself at her. She wasn’t wrong.

“ _Blue!_ ” Piper screamed, running up the long ramp that led to the platform, her old ratty coat long gone and replaced with a new one. She still had the same newscap holding down her hair, though. There was another face behind her, blurry and indistinct as Val’s eyes filled with tears. She hadn’t until that moment realized just how much she’d missed her friend. Piper’s arms came around her, reeking of ink and cigarettes and before long another pair of strong arms encircled them both. Val looked up through her tears with shock.

“Hello, darlin’,” an Irish voice said with cheek. “Where ya been keepin’ yerself, eh?”

“Oh, Cait!” Hank and Charon stood by, looking on at this jubilant display of greeting. Val finally noticed them and laughed. Her joy transformed her scarred face, lifting years off it. “Sorry, guys, it’s just…”

“No, go on,” Hank said, amused.

“Who’s this fine specimen?” Cait asked drolly, her arm around Piper.

“Cait, Piper, meet Hank Neeson and Charon. From the Capital Wasteland.”

“Now I see why ya up an’ left us all in the lurch,” Cait said. “Welcome to our great, green jewel.”

“You’re the fighter, right?” Hank said, shaking her hand. “Val told us about you.”

“Only good things, I ‘ope.”

“Mostly,” Hank agreed, and she laughed.

“Blue, why are you here?” The group moved off the entry platform towards Publick Occurrences for more privacy and once they were inside, Piper set about moving stacks of her newspaper from chairs and furniture so they could all sit. It was as cramped as ever, smelling of ink and paper and stale smoke. If scent is a form of memory, this one was all Piper.

“I need to see Nick. We’ve…well, we’ve been looking for a friend.”

“A missing friend?” Piper asked, immediately going from former companion to hardened reporter. “Jeez, I thought those days were over.”

“Me too.” The women shared a glance, both remembering how they’d met back when Val had been looking for her missing son. That single disappearance ended up utterly changing the Commonwealth forever.

“I know Nicky’s in town. He and Ellie have moved, but the agency’s in the same spot.”

“Are they a thing yet?”

“Oh yeah, have been for years,” Piper said with a smile, while Cait frowned slightly. She’d never gotten that close to the old prototype synth. But she put up with him for the sake of Piper.

“About damn time. Hank, you want to stay here and give Piper an interview on Project Purity?” She grinned at the sight of Piper’s face as the reporter put two and two together.

“You’re the _Lone_ _Wanderer_?” she asked Hank, her voice raising until she was nearly shouting.

“The one and only,” he replied with a little half bow. Piper screeched, making them all shake their heads at the noise.

“Yes, yes, yes, stay and talk with me! Blue knows where to find Nicky boy. I want the scoop. Man, this is almost bigger than you, Blue.”

“Yeah, I know,” Val said, still shaking her head at her friend’s enthusiasm for a good story. “I’ll take Charon with me, all right?” she said to Hank, who waved a hand absently, already settling in to tell Piper his life story.

Val and Charon went back out onto the main thoroughfare of the city, following the bases backwards to a narrow alley lit with neon signs. Before she knocked on the door to the Valentine Detective Agency, she turned to him. “Nick’s appearance is a little…disturbing.”

“Sweetpea, really?” Charon growled, tilting his head at her as if he couldn’t believe she’d just said that, or that it would matter to him, a ghoul.

“I know, I know. But still, he doesn’t like to draw attention to it, so I’m just giving you fair warning. He’s an older type of synth, so he doesn’t exactly look human. Not like Harkness or Curie.” Charon just huffed. They knocked and went in.

“I heard a rumor that some dame from the distant past was in town,” she heard Nick say from his desk. His voice was the same, rolling, gentle and soothing. The years fled and she was staring into the same face she’d once rescued from Skinny Malone. Dapper in a noir way, smooth and charismatic, that was Nick Valentine. The tie was new, the fedora was not. The trench coat was hung on the back of his chair, and she could see his arms for what felt like the first time. He had new patches covering the exposed wires on his neck and cheek, but his eyes were the same. Glowing yellow with a hint of wry humor in them. One hand covered in synthetic flesh, the other…not.

“News travels fast in this ‘burb,” she commented. He stood up, the same quirky half grin on his lips and they sort of melted into each other’s embrace. “Hello, Valentine.”

“Hello, doll.” _Coolant, ozone, cigarettes_. Val was being reminded of how much things remained the same, no matter how much she had changed. They held each other for a long time, her head nestled on his shoulder. He had been her first real friend in this new world – Preston was a great guy, but he wasn’t Nick – and probably her best. She’d missed him more than anyone, maybe even more than Hancock.

“Oh, Nick…”

“Been too long, Val. What brings you?”

“A case.” She finally stepped away from him and he adopted his ‘I’m listening’ pose, making her smile. “Hey, where’s Ellie?”

“Out with the kids.”

“Kids?”

“Well, you know I can’t give her any of my own. But we’ve picked up a couple strays over the years. Lotta orphans out there needing homes. We don’t actually live here anymore. Needed a bigger place. We took over the Home Plate, didn’t think you’d mind.”

“That’s wonderful, Nick.”

“I think so.” He gestured to the table where he’s always conducted his initial interviews. She lowered herself into the same chair she had sat in twelve years before, where she’d described the man who’d taken her son, who’d shot her husband and left her in the ice. A momentary chill passed through her with the memory. She could tell Nick was thinking of it too. “So, doll, tell me everything.”


	8. Parallel

She’d changed, but he could see the remnant of the woman she used to be. The scar was long and fairly hideous, but she wore it without being self-consciousness about it. The ghoul at her back was formidable and silent, but Nick was good at reading people. She’d moved on. He felt a pang for his old friend Hancock. They didn’t speak about it much, hell, they didn’t speak much at all since the Mayor of Goodneighbor had decided the open road was no longer for him, but he knew the depth of feeling had never altered.

“Start at the beginning, Val,” Nick said, lighting a cigarette. He offered her one but she shook her head. Well, that was new.

“Okay. After I…left the Commonwealth, I traveled to DC with MacCready. He came back here with Duncan, but I stayed down there. I ended up in Megaton where I met Charon here and his employer, one Hank Neeson.”

“The famous Lone Wanderer of Vault 101,” Nick said. He eyed Charon who met his gaze in silence. “I like to think I’m better informed than the average Joe on the street. I’ve heard of you two.” Charon acknowledged him with a tight smile. _Better than a kick in the teeth_ , Nick thought. “So who’s the missing person, then? I’m assuming that’s why you’re here. You got to be a pretty good detective in your own right, Val. If you need me, that means you’ve gotten into something bigger than yourself. Again.”

“Yeah…” she sighed. “Missing person is Gob, a ghoul from Megaton. Bar owner. Old but not pre-war. He left his bar and went to see his mother in Underworld – that’s the ghoul city in DC – but never made it. We were able to track him for a while, then the leads went cold. We picked up on other reports of missing ghouls, however. Trying to chase them down brought us up north out of the Capital wastes, so I figured we might as well come all the way and see you.” She spread her hands, an almost defeated gesture. “We’ve got nothing else to go on.”

“I’ve worked with less, you know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” She paused, looking him over. “Still having trouble with everyone’s favorite dead Institute mercenary?”

“Not so much these days. Still, Amari didn’t think it was good idea to transfer me into a new body. Might trigger something we weren’t prepared to deal with.”

“I take it she patched you up.”

“She did. We were able to get skin samples off of some Gen-2’s after the explosion. Updated my software a little bit too. No more memory overload. Now I’m just Frankenstein’s synth.”

Val snorted appreciatively. “You still see much of DiMA?”

“Yes, we try to get up there at least once a year. Acadia’s full of happy little synths now. Chase was even able to reset some Gen-1’s and 2’s for security purposes. Their alliance with Far Harbor is as tight as it can be. Life is good up there.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“So,” he said, getting back to the subject at hand. “We have missing ghouls. With the Institute gone, and the Gunners more or less gone since you wiped out Gunner Plaza, we have a mystery villain on our hands. This sounds too widespread for it to be raiders, and slavers have been pushed back from around here for long enough that they don’t make much of a difference. How about at your end of the map?”

“DC still has quite the slaver population, but they don’t usually go after ghouls. They’re more interested in the skin trade,” she said with a disgusted face. “We don’t have Gunners in DC, but we do have Talon Company.”

“ _Had_. You wiped them out too,” Charon said suddenly. Nick caught his eye and grinned.

“She never did like killers for hire.”

“No,” Charon replied. _A man of few words_ , Nick thought. _But no dummy_.

“This puts a new spin to some information I have,” Nick went on. “Got a report from Preston just yesterday that the Slog had gone radio quiet. I’m planning to head out that way and investigate.”

“Shit…Nick, half that settlement is ghouls. You think…?”

“Let's not jump to conclusions, doll, I taught you better than that. Come with me, maybe we can put our heads together and get this thing figured out.”

“Absolutely. We just need to collect Hank.”

“Piper?” Nick asked wryly.

Val grinned. “Of course.”

“Well that’ll keep her busy. She can still keep an ear to the ground. I swear that woman has more contacts than me.”

“You want to head straight out or should we stop in and resupply somewhere?” Nick looked at her sharply. Something in her tone told him she wanted an excuse to go back to Goodneighbor, since they were perfectly able to resupply in Diamond City. He let his optics draw Charon into focus too, but saw nothing on the tall ghoul’s face that led him to believe the man knew what she was talking about. Either that or he didn’t care. He was quite the enigma.

 _Well, it’s not the first time I’ve see someone use someone else as a replacement_ , he thought. _Just never thought I’d see Val doing to it_.

“You sure that’s…wise?” he asked aloud.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Don’t be obtuse, Valara, it’s not your style,” Nick chided. She frowned. He raised a hand in a pacifying gesture. “On your head be it if you want to face him down.”

“I do want to keep him apprised of the situation. He told us nothing has happened in Goodneighbor, but regardless of the fact that he seems to think he’s invulnerable, I know he isn’t.”

“Hey, it’s your prerogative to worry for him,” Nick said gently, aware that Charon was listening to every word. He was intrigued by the dynamic between them. It was obvious they were together, but just as obvious was the fact that she still cared enough about Hancock to go out of her way to see him again. _I don’t miss being in that sort of triangle_ , he thought. Once he’d been the fulcrum between them. Now he had Ellie and the kids. Val had moved on, no matter how slightly. The only one left out in the cold was Hancock. It wasn’t an enviable place to be.

“Well, time to hit the road?” Val said, teasingly. His own words came out of her mouth and he was suddenly reminded of what it was like to travel with her. She was fearless, adept and canny. They had worked well together. Sounds like things hadn’t changed that much, and they likely would work well together again.

“Let’s go.”

***

“At least he took the caps,” Val said when they all entered her house in Goodneighbor. It had been strange to see Daisy’s Discounts closed up, but a quick word with KLEO had sorted that out. Caravan run, nothing out of the ordinary. She did it at least once a year, always had.

“Did you actually think he wouldn’t take them?” Hank asked her curiously. The former Vault dweller had more of a reaction to Nick than he’d expected, but he recovered well. Apparently his exposure to synths had pretty much been limited to a guy named Harkness, who was Gen-3 and looked, sounded and acted totally human.

“He can be…obstinate,” Val replied absently, going up the stairs to the living quarters. Nick smothered a laugh. The pair of them could be _obstinate_. “Dammit, I forgot again that I don’t have guest space.”

“Doll, I don’t need it, remember? I don’t sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You might freak Hank out, though, with your nightlight eyes.”

“Val, really?” Hank arched his brows at her. She grinned impishly.

“Valara, don’t tease your friends, you little minx,” Nick chastised, well-practiced with her antics. She might look different but the parallels to the past weren’t lost on him. Her inner fire remained.

“You’re no fun, Valentine.”

“Someone has to keep a lid on you.”

“Pfft.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.”

“Nick, I’m older than you are.”

“Only in years, doll. Not in miles.” She came out of her room where she’d gone to change out of her road togs and grinned at him. He patted her cheek just for old times’ sake before joining in her quiet laughter.

“All right, enough fun and games. You guys gonna be all right while I talk to Goodneighbor’s fearless leader?”

“Yeah,” Hank said with a wave of his hand, already several pages into a Grognak he’d found on a magazine rack. Charon just plunked himself down at the kitchen table and began field stripping his shotgun to clean it.

“I’ll see you later,” she murmured softly in the ghoul’s ear and they exchanged a quick soft kiss before Nick could turn away. “Ready?” she said brightly and led his down the stairs. It really was like old times as the pair of them went up the spiral stairs inside the State House. Val and Nick against the world.

“Valara,” Hancock said when he saw them. Nick heard the relief, probably would have heard it from a mile away. “You really did come back.”

“Did you think…? Okay, yeah, I guess I deserve that.” She cracked half a grin and sat on the edge of the sofa she had dragged back to Goodneighbor herself, a red velvet thing, cozy for two. Nick was not at all surprised that Hancock had kept it, although apparently she was. “You took your back taxes, I see.”

“Hey, if you were just gonna leave them there for anyone to pick up…might as well be me.” He even smiled, although it didn’t reach his eyes. Nick wondered if he was seeing two of his favorite people on their best behavior because he was there. _Well, better than screaming I guess_ …

“Before you two get into another one of your contests of wills, we have news,” he said, drawing their attention away from each other and the smoldering mix of resentment and desire that was clogging the room. He gave Hancock a brief rundown on the message he’d gotten from Preston about the Slog, assuming that Val had already told him why she was there.

“So, you’re gonna check it out, huh? Want some extra company?” Hancock was asking him, but seemed to be keeping Val in his peripheral vision, as if he wanted to see her response too. He was surprised at Hancock's offer but didn't let it show.

“I’m fine with it if your duties allow it.”

“Oh, they do.”

“Val?” Nick turned to her since she hadn’t said anything. The look on her face was complicated. She wanted to say yes and was trying to convince herself to say no. Finally she sighed and shrugged.

“Makes no difference to me. Hancock’s always been good in a fight.”

“Are you expectin’ one?”

She eyed him sidelong. “One never knows.”

Hancock grinned broadly, all teeth and promise. Nick doubted it had anything to do with fighting whatever they came across in the ruins of Boston. “You’re right about that.”


	9. Rage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *CONTENT WARNING*
> 
> This chapter has depiction of brief psychotic hysteria brought on by grief.

Valara, Nick, Hank, Charon and Hancock came up upon the Slog from the south, skirting around Bunker Hill and passing through County Crossing on their way. The saw no trouble on their journey, at least, none until they got close to Saugus Ironworks, nearly within view of the ghoul led community. The old forge was still an eyesore, with a burning pile of garbage in front of the big double doors that led into the heart of the ironworks, and spotlights and guards walking the rooftop perimeter. There was the remains of a truck on its side blocking the way past unless they wanted to go around a steep ridge off the side of the road. A small shack with the controls for the spotlights hugged the backside of the building, the side they were coming up from, but Val – as well and Nick and Hancock since they’d been here before with her – knew it was booby-trapped with a flamethrower.

“Dammit, don’t these assholes ever learn?” Val inquired of no one in particular. Hancock flashed an anticipatory grin, and Nick looked grim. She turned to Hank and Charon. “So, these idiots like fire. Long range is best since none of us is in power armor. The sooner we clear them out, the safer we’ll all be once we get to the Slog. These raiders never did know when to leave well enough alone.”

“All right,” Hank replied, unslinging his sniper rifle and taking up a position where he could get good shots. Charon said nothing, of course, and checked his shotgun to make sure it was loaded.

“They’re gonna wish this was a nightmare,” Hancock growled, hugging his own shotgun close to his chest.

Nick merely pulled out his .44 from his pocket with a resigned air. “Ready when you are, doll.”

Val withdrew a powerful laser rifle and took up a position between Nick and Hank. “We need to pick them off before they reach us. They’re pretty tough, assuming of course things haven’t changed that much.”

“Yeah, ya didn’t get _that_ lucky,” Hancock muttered.

Shots began to ring out from the roof of the building and a horde of the Forged poured out of the doors, flamethrowers at the ready. They came around the side of the ironworks, already shooting and throwing Molotov cocktails into their midst.

“God I hate these guys,” Val said before turning her attention to the fight. They were relatively evenly matched. She was used to fighting in a trio since she’d been traveling with Hank and Charon; the addition of two more seasoned veterans of her wanderings meant the conflict wasn’t nearly as difficult as she expected.

Until Hancock took a blast from a flamethrower in his shoulder and roared. He threw his shotgun aside and pulled a knife from his sash. She recognized the knife immediately.

“Oh, I’m feral now!” he growled out. He ran headlong into the Forged raider desperately trying to reload their flamer, his arm a blur of speed as he swung his blade.

 _He’s using it_ …her mind stuttered to a stop on that thought as she watched his deadly grace. The poison from the blade splashed over him and the raider, who was screeching both in pain and horror. Another of the Forged saw them and started towards them, flamer spitting out gouts of smoke and raining fire on them both, as well as all over everything in his path. Nick calmly put four shots into the new raider’s head, dropping him on the last one.

Next to them the truck had ignited and Val knew what was going to follow. Before she could call out a warning it blew. The explosion rocked the ground under their feet, spraying them all with burning chunks of metal and flooding the area with a concentrated dose of radioactivity, which thankfully dissipated rapidly in the hot wind caused by so many flamers. Hancock’s raider was dead, either from the blast or from his blade, but he was slumped on the ground too.

“John!” Val shouted, not even realizing it as she ran to him, digging in her pack for a stimpak. She slid to her knees at his side, trying to find a bit of skin that wasn’t burned to a crisp in order to administer the lifesaving chem. She could still feel the heat of the truck fire, and knew she was probably taking some rads that hadn’t floated away yet, but she didn’t care. “God damn you for a fool, Hancock. You don’t get to do this to me.”

“Oh, Sunshine…” he just managed to croak before he fell backwards on the stony ground, liberally littered with ash and molten bits from the explosion.

“No! You stay with me, now!” She found a spot and injected him quickly, pulling another stimpak from her pack before the first one was empty. “Please tell me you have some Med-X on you, you _idiot_.”

“Left…pocket…” She dug around, feeling all sorts of chems in there – what a shock – until she found the slim, purple syringe she was looking for.

“What the ever living hell were you thinking? No, don’t answer that, just stay still.” She hit him with the Med-X and a final stimpak before she ground her head with the heels of her hands, scrubbing away tears she hadn’t been aware she was shedding. She waited for the stimpaks to do their job. The fight was winding down around them as Hank, Charon and Nick mopped up any remaining Forged raiders. Hank and Charon systematically stripped the dead bodies of any ammunition and loot, while Nick kept an eye out for anything else that might want to play. All sorts of unfriendly wildlife made their homes around this area, from wild Brahmin to rabid mongrels to deathclaws.

Val’s heaving gasps grew slower as she caught her breath and the chems began to work on Hancock, healing the burns, reknitting his skin and flesh before her very eyes. In a few minutes he looked more like himself and opened his eyes. He even sat up, rubbing the back of his neck and groaning.

“Worried, Sunshine?” he asked wryly. He sounded so normal for a moment that she didn’t know whether to kiss him or punch him. She did neither, just pushed herself up to her feet, dusting off her knees. Now that the crisis was over her brain caught up and reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to care anymore. She dug out a canister of water from her pack and dropped it between his bent knees.

“I wouldn’t want to have to answer to Fahrenheit, that’s all,” she snapped, but even she could hear the lie in her voice. He smirked but didn’t reply, just sipped the water. That many stimpaks took a toll on a body. They both knew he should eat something too, something substantial and full of calories. “Got any food on you?” she asked, already knowing his answer. He shook his head. “Typical.” She rooted around in her pack some more and came up with a sealed box of Salisbury Steak. “Eat it.”

He took it without comment and tore it open. It had to be gross cold, but he didn’t complain.

“I’ll live,” he assured her acerbically when he’d finished. She nodded and left his side to collect the others. From the corner of her eye she saw him get up and find his shotgun, tucking Kremvh’s Tooth back into his flag sash.

“How’s everyone else?” she called out.

“We’re good,” Hank said, waving a hand. Charon stood stoic and silent at his side and Val wondered what was going through his head. He must have had suspicions before; now they had been confirmed. She wasn’t sure it mattered; she wasn’t sure she even cared at that moment.

“Nick?”

“I’m fine, doll.”

“Right, well, let’s get going. The Slog is just up the road.”

***

The smell hit them first. Dead bodies, left out in the sun and open air to rot. Val groaned in despair and took off running ahead of the others, Charon and Hancock both hot on her heels once they knew what she was up to. She stopped at the top of the hill, looking around at the complete devastation of what had once been a thriving community of tarberry farmers, with a market and a vast garden and water purifiers and homes.

“Ohh…” she moaned, her face a mask of pain.

“Stay with her,” Hancock commanded Charon, unslinging his shotgun once more as he and Nick moved slowly through the ruins, looking for survivors…or perpetrators. Hank came up and rested his hands on Val’s shoulders, keeping her still. She couldn’t look any more and turned her face into Charon’s broad chest. The trio stood together until Nick and Hancock came back.

“Every ghoul is missing,” Nick said in a low rumble. “And every human settler is dead.”

Val lifted her head from Charon and peered at Nick. “What? Wiseman…Holly…Deirdre…Jones…Arlen…? All of them?”

“All of them, doll. Whoever this is, they are definitely targeting ghouls.” Nick’s face wrinkled up as he frowned, anger replacing his grief. His metal fingers curled into a fist. Ten years ago it had been humans being taken and replaced with synths. Now this? The Commonwealth couldn’t catch a break.

“We can’t leave it like this,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady.

“All right,” Nick replied, his shoulders slumping. It was a bitter blow to lose the Slog this way. Each of them began clearing away debris from smashed and burned out houses, scooped up remains from the bar, from the trading post. They found shovels and went down the hill to a spot where the ground was soft enough to dig and began making graves. It was backbreaking work, but no one complained. No one stopped, not even to rest. Not even Hancock, still recovering from his brush with fiery death.

Once the graves were dug, the men got to work shifting bodies into them, while Val made markers from planks of wood and durable cords of tarberry vines. When she was finished she carried them out across the concrete decking that surrounded the tarberry bog. She heard the dirt being shoveled back into the ground and sank to her knees, spilling out all the markers from her arms. There were so many…so many. And she hadn’t been able to save them. _No_ _one_ had been able to save them.

She began to keen, rocking back and forth on her knees, her arms clutched tight around herself, surrounded by the final markers of people she’d never known. Over and over, ceaseless and breathless, she raged and mourned. It was so pointless, all those deaths of innocents. And where were her friends? Were they dead somewhere too?

She felt strong hands on her and through the fog of her anguish she could smell gunpowder and chems. _Hancock_.

“C’mon, Sunshine.” He brought her to her feet and she clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck in a throttling grasp.

“I didn’t even know all their names…” she gasped in his ear. “I didn’t…”

“Shh, now, don’t do this.”

“I can’t…” she tried to speak but couldn’t as she started to hyperventilate. She was choking on her tears, her fingers spasmodically pulling and releasing on his shoulders. “I…”

“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Hancock murmured, holding her close.

She gave into her sobs then, wrenching, horrible sounds that tore through her like fire, like acid. Something broke inside her and she screamed and shouted and raged and grew wild with it. She lost her balance and nearly toppled them both, but he caught her, lowering them to the concrete next to the tarberry bog made from a pool. He held her in his arms and rocked her like a child and she cried. She couldn’t stop.

“I’ll finish this,” Charon’s growling voice penetrated her agony. He gathered up the markers and she felt Hancock’s head move as he nodded to the other ghoul in thanks. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her inside the bathhouse the residents had used as a common room. Still cradling her he sat on the sofa, her legs across his lap.

She was quieter now; her terrible grief had all poured out. She couldn’t deny that it was just heartbreak at what had been done here. She was mourning so many things she couldn’t name in the light of day. Her past, her lost baby, her lost love. Now mixed with the loss of her friends in this place she'd spent so many happy hours. She felt burdened by so much she felt like she was going to shatter like glass.

“Where did we go wrong, John?” she asked finally, her voice hoarse from her suffering, her face blotchy and hot from her tears.

“I dunno, Val.” He stroked his hand down her back, over and over, soothing and light. She’d always loved the way he touched her. She missed it. Charon didn’t touch her like this. “I think maybe we burned too hot. And it burned too fast.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

“I want to go back to Goodneighbor. And I want you to stay there.”

“Val…”

“I couldn’t bear it…John, I don’t know what I’d do…if something happened to you…I…I don’t know how I’d bear…” New tears welled in her eyes and she couldn’t continue. She burrowed into the crook of his shoulder, his chin resting on her head. “Promise me.”

He sighed. He didn’t remind her that she was the one who had left him. That the years had passed and they were both different people than they had been a decade ago. That their love was over and done. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, because he knew they were a lie. _You have to forgive her for it_ , he heard Daisy say in his head. _And forgive yourself_. “All right, Sunshine. I promise.”

“Take me home, John.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope all my dear readers are okay after that. :( It had to be done.


	10. Reconciled

The group stayed the night at the Finch Farm. There was no way any of them could stay at the Slog, sleeping in _their_ beds, sleeping so close to fresh graves. No one had argued when Val stated firmly that she wanted to leave.

Abraham Finch greeted her warmly with a hug and a handshake for both Nick and Hancock. “Too many years, General,” he said, chucking her under her chin like she was a child. He’d grown more aged and frail with the years – and with sorrow she saw that Abigail had passed – but his sons were still there, now both married with families of their own. The farm boasted a large population of settlers too, and the mutfruit orchard had spread almost to the underpass of the old highway.

“It looks good, Abraham,” she said. The old man beamed with pride.

They set out sleeping bags in a squat shack that traders usually used as they passed through and settled down for the night. But Val couldn’t sleep. She’d forced herself to eat something at the communal table and tried to stay at least outwardly pleasant to everyone who wanted to come up and say hello, but inside she was cold, lifeless. Seeing the destruction at the Slog had hit her hard. It had been one of their favorite places to relax, she remembered, she and Hancock. Wiseman always welcomed them, and Holly always told ribald jokes, and Jones always made her dance to the jukebox and Deirdre always wanted to do her hair, and Arlen was always tinkering with that Giddyup Buttercup… There were too many memories there.

It had been so well defended too. There were turrets on every corner of the bathhouse roof, an artillery cannon pointing towards Dunwich Borers, and guard stations at each end of the tarberry pool. And it hadn’t been enough to save them. Every turret had been blown apart, the artillery cannon had been smashed, the guard towers burned like the rest of it. _What could smash artillery?_ she thought to herself. _How did an entire community come to be eradicated?_

She walked through the mutfruit trees, idly touching the leaves and smelling the spring air and growing things. The world was reviving, and it touched something in her that was frozen. She started to thaw anew. Above the stars shone down on her, remote and disinterested and always the same. After twelve years of living in a post-war world, she still wasn’t quite used to how many more of them were visible than the in the skies she’d grown up seeing.

She came to the end of the rows of mutfruits and leaned against the concrete pylon of the old highway. The road itself had collapsed all around her, leaving chunks of rubble and abandoned cars. The unobstructed view was spectacular. She could see the silhouettes of the Revere Satellite Array, blocking out the stars some distance away. Once there had been super mutants there. There might still be, for all she knew. But from here, from Finch Farm, it just looked peaceful. A reminder of the old world, stark and silent in the night air. She knew if she turned left she would see across the water of the inlet to the Gibson Point Pier, but there was nothing to see there anymore. No lights, no boats.

She heard the crunch of footsteps approaching and wasn’t surprised when Charon stepped into view next to her. She leaned on the concrete pillar and watched the stars and waited. If he’d followed her out here, it was for a reason. He never did anything without purpose.

“I have never asked for details,” he said after a minute. She cocked her head at an angle so she could see him in the dimness of the starlight. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Most people thought it was a defensive stance, or that he was just trying to be intimidating. She knew better. Charon was most comfortable with a gun at the ready. When he didn’t have one, he simply didn’t know what to do with his hands.

“No, you haven’t. Are you now?”

“I don’t think I need to.” There was an unbridgeable gulf between them. It had always been there, but for nine years she’d never acknowledged it. He always had. No fuss, no criticism, but he’d known someday she would leave him. He was reconciled to that fact, accepted it as part of their reality. It counted, at least, that there was a reason.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“You don’t need to be.” Charon looked away from her, gazing at the sky. “The sky is much clearer here in the Commonwealth.”

She looked up again too. “It is.”

“You need to tell him, Sweetpea.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“He deserves to know.”

“Charon…”

“It doesn’t matter for me.” From anyone else it would have sounded dismissive, but she knew that wasn’t how he meant it. This final secret was the bridge they could not cross. It was a hard line drawn in the sand that would forever tie her to someone else and not him. He had been with her every step of the way, had seen how she’d grown and changed from the heartbroken wreck that had stumbled into Megaton, alone and lost. He had been friend and lover, a rock to steady herself against. He had been her support for almost nine years.

“I do love you, Charon. I’m just…”

“You don’t need to say it out loud, Valara. I don’t need you to hurt yourself. You’re already doing that enough.” He looked at her again, his eyes visible in his face, the blue so bright it rivaled the daytime sky. They were not emotionless and flat the way most people thought they were. He even smiled, a crooked quirk of half his face. “Sweetpea, you’ll always be in my heart, but it’s time.”

“I’m afraid.”

“You are your own woman now. If he rejects you, you know you don’t have to stay. If he doesn’t…you know you will.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It is simple, Sweetpea. It was always simple.”

She laughed, and it sounded more like a sob than anything else. “Why couldn’t I have met you first?”

“I don’t think that would have changed anything.”

“It would have changed everything.”

“No. I cannot give you what he did. I never could.”

“Oh, Charon…” She did start to cry then, tears spilling over her cheeks. She burrowed into his chest and his arms came around her, just like always. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t. I’ll always be at your back.” She tipped back her head and he kissed her, gently and with something that felt like finality. The stars wheeled overhead, but they weren’t watching them anymore. Eventually even her soft weeping faded away into silence, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. They didn’t speak again, but went back to the trader shack and tried to get some sleep.

***

In the morning it was raining. They all grumbled a bit; no one likes to hike in the rain. Val was still tired, still heart sore, but she didn’t complain. They walked the miles in relative silence, each contemplating their own thoughts. They stopped at Bunker Hill at midday, watching the steady trade go on around them. Val climbed up the monument steps to the top and stared out the window. Nick had come with her.

“You all right, doll?” he asked, idly tightening the old stripped screws of his naked hand. Funny how he’d never gotten those replaced. Or maybe he had, and these had stripped out too.

“I will be.”

“I couldn’t help but overhear you two last night.” She cut her gaze to his sharply. “Hey, I can’t help it if I have better auditory sensors than you biological things.” She huffed, but it was good natured. She couldn’t be angry with Nick. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“That’s a whopper of a lie, doll, but I’ll leave it for now. Just…just know that I’m always here for you.”

“I know that. It’s strange, ya know? Being back here. I thought I’d never come back. I’d made a good life for myself in DC. I wasn’t hounded constantly to do this or that, and I could be anyone I wanted to be.”

“That’s a strange way of putting it.”

“Before the war I was a wife, a mother and a lawyer. I went into the ice and became a widow and a victim. I thawed out and became a survivor. And then I was some kind of avenging warrior.” She shrugged. “I seemed to always be re-inventing myself. I had to make an end to it at some point.”

“The human Nick was a good cop, a faithful man and a good friend. I’ll always carry him with me,” Nick said. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it lightly. “He’s a part of me, this new Nick, well not so new anymore. I’ve lived three lifetimes in this beat up old body compared to you humans. Anyway, you are the one who taught me that he doesn’t define me. You once told me that everything I’d done since waking up outside the Institute was on my own head. The choices I made, the people whose lives I’d changed. Even yours. Do you remember?”

“I do,” she replied. “And you said that if nothing else, what we had done together was ours and ours alone. That you could die happy because you had done good things in this world, just because they were right.”

“But none of it would have happened without you,” Nick said, an echo of words he’d said to her so long ago. “Huh, it’s still true, you know. You changed the face of the Commonwealth, hell, maybe the whole world. You made some hard choices, you got your hands dirty with it.” He took her hands in his, examining them. “You always were a hell of a dame, Val.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“I guess my point…well, my point is that you don’t have to be anyone other than yourself. From one re-invented character to another, it’s not worth trying to make everyone happy. Just yourself.”

“I’m…I’m still some of those things I was before I went into the Vault, Nick,” Val said carefully after a time.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still…still a mother.”

Nick went very still. She recognized the stance well; he’d often done this when he ran a diagnostic on himself. He was processing something big. In a way it made her want to laugh, that her secret was so outstanding that he had to go into standby mode to think about it. He knew as well as the rest of them that she hadn’t saved the synth copy of her son when she’d blown up the Institute. She simply couldn’t do it, couldn’t take the last remnant of her son. She had been in a dark place, angry and grieving and so deeply horrified at what her son had become. It had taken her all the months of travelling to the Capital Wasteland to get over it, but by then she’d already known what was coming for her. Her chance to start over.

“Who else knows?” Nick asked after a moment.

“MacCready. Hank and Charon, of course. Preston. And now you.”

“But not John.  And I'm assuming it has something to do with him.”

“No.  And yes.”

“So why are you telling me before him?”

“Because you were the first true friend I made out here in the Commonwealth. The first one who knew what I’d lost, who could understand where I came from in a way that no one else could. Preston and the Minutemen were always there to follow me, Hancock was there to make me love again, Piper and Cait and Mac and…and even Deacon…they had my back, they cared for me as best they could. But you, you _understood_ me. I’ve always been able to tell you things I can’t tell them.”

“How old is this child of yours?”

“She’s nine.”

She watched Nick do the math. His face was startled, then joyful, then serious again. “So that’s what your tall friend meant when he said it was time to tell him. Your daughter is John’s.”

“She is.”

“How…?”

Val shrugged and spread out her hands in a gesture of incomprehension. “All I can think of is the fact that he didn’t turn by rads, he turned by chems. I suppose…I suppose in a way we should have thought about it. I mean, everyone assumes all ghouls are sterile, right? Because the rads make them that way. But he…”

“He isn’t, apparently.”

“She is my miracle,” Val said with a laugh. “Our miracle.”

“Where is she now?”

“The Castle. It seemed safest to keep her there. Preston is there and Mac lives there, so she has Duncan to be friends with, and…” She slumped. “Nick, I’m scared to tell him. Scared to admit that was why I ran, why I stayed away for so long.”

“You knew then?”

“Not right then. But once I did know, I didn’t come back. I kept running. She was born right after we got to DC. In Rivet City…well, what’s left of it. I have a few choice words for Elder Maxson if I ever see him again.”

“And she’s…all right? She’s normal?”

“Yeah, she is. A perfectly ordinary nine year old girl, who has no idea her father is a ghoul.”

“Do you think he will be angry?”

“I think he may not believe me. He has never had a reason to think he was different from other ghouls. And…with the way things are…”

“Reconciliation would be hard if he doesn’t believe you.” Nick had on his wise face, but it didn’t want to stick. He was still so shocked. “Is that why you’re here? To tell him?”

“Well, not really. I never thought…I didn’t think he’d want me back. I didn’t think it was an option, and I didn’t want to hurt her if she knew who he was and it didn’t work out. Better for them both to stay ignorant than to have it all fall apart and cause needless hurt. We did truly come here to find Gob. And I knew we needed your help for it. I only brought Genevieve because I didn’t know how long it would take. The only people I trust to keep her safe are already with me.”

“Genevieve, huh? _God’s Blessing_.”

“I thought it was appropriate,” Val said with a grin.

“I can’t speak for John, but I for one am happy for you.”

“Thanks, Nick. It’s a hard world to raise a child in.”

“Yes, it is. And I would know.”

“Yeah, I guess you would.”

“Look, if you need some time to think it over before telling him, that’s fine. Take all the time you need. But I think you shouldn’t wait. You’re right, it’s a hard world. A dangerous one too. You would never forgive yourself if after coming all this way, you didn’t tell him before…”

“Before something happens to him? Why do you think I want to go back to Goodneighbor so badly? I already made him promise he’d stay there, safe and sound behind his high walls and Triggermen.”

“It didn’t save the Slog,” Nick pointed out pragmatically but not without sympathy. He knew how much that place had meant to her.

“No, it didn’t. But now we also know what we’re looking out for.”

“Do we?”

“I imagine any strangers coming to Goodneighbor will not receive the kind of warm welcome they used to, at least until we figure this whole thing out. If nothing else, our guards are up.”

“You may be right about that.” Nick snaked an arm over her shoulders, feeling that it was time to get back to the others. “C’mon, doll, we shouldn’t keep them guessing about what we’re plotting up here. Let’s get you home.”


	11. Tension

They all breathed in relief when they returned to Goodneighbor. Hank and Charon went towards Val’s house – the ghoul pecking Val’s forehead quickly and whispering something in her ear – and Hancock wanted to frown, wanted to feel jealousy, but he couldn’t justify it. From what he could tell, the tall ghoul was a good man, a _worthy_ man. Nick announced that he was going to visit Irma and Amari in the Memory Den and that left Hancock and Val standing awkwardly in the street.

“Want a drink?” he asked, jerking his thumb towards the Third Rail.

“Sure,” she replied, her shoulders tense.

They entered the Rail together, nodded a greeting to Ham, still in a pristine tuxedo, and went down the stairs to the bar as if nothing had changed. Val stopped at the bottom and sort of soaked up the ambiance into her body. He could see her relax, the tension she’d been carrying with her since the Slog just draining away. He went up to Charlie and got a bottle of whiskey and two glasses and gestured to the empty VIP room.

“Sure, Mr. Mayor, if you think you can stand being alone with me,” Val teased.

“I'd like nothing better,” he returned effortlessly. It had always been easy to flirt with Val, even when she was a blushing shy stranger still trying to figure out this new world. He couldn’t say he missed the shy side of her much, although he did miss making her blush. She lounged on one of the sofas, having kicked off her boots. He chuckled.

“Make yourself at home.”

“I will,” she retorted. He poured and she took the glass from his hand with only a slight tremor in it.

“Valara…how you holding up?”

“I’m awful. How about you?”

“Same.”

She raised her glass. “Here’s to being awful together.”

He laughed – how could he not, he’d walked right into it – and clinked his glass against hers. They drank and he poured again, sipping it slowly this time. She rolled her glass between her hands. When she looked up at him her face was solemn, the stark scar running down her left side doing nothing to detract from her beauty.

“Were we? Were we awful together?”

He took his time answering. He sat at the other end of the sofa from her and he pivoted so he could see her. “I don’t think so. I think we were unprepared. You were not ready for this world and all its horrors, and I…well, I wasn’t ready to commit to the package deal.” He studied her face, memorizing all the new details. There was the scar of course, but there were also tiny lines around her eyes, marks of age and mileage. She had more freckles across her cheeks than he remembered, and her mouth was set in a line far more serious than he remembered. He wondered if he had changed too. Ghouls age slower than humans, but time still takes its due.

“Hancock…”

“I was recently forcibly reminded,” he interrupted, “by Daisy, no less, that I asked too much of you. And for that I’m sorry. Truly. I should never have come between you and your mission. I have no love for the Brotherhood of Steel, you know that, but I should not have pushed into your decisions, made you feel bad for getting whatever tool was best for the job.”

“How long have you been practicing that speech?” she said, a glint in her eye that meant she wanted to laugh.

“Since we left Goodneighbor.”

“And you waited this long to say it?”

“Would you rather have had this conversation in front of everyone?”

“No, I guess not.” She downed her whiskey and sat up to pour another one. “Thank you, Hancock. And I’m sorry too. I know I was a head case, but I shouldn’t have run.”

“It doesn’t matter now. You had to do what was right for you. Who am I to judge a person for running? I did it my whole life before I met you.”

“Still…I wish I hadn’t.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have met tall, dangerous and brooding otherwise.”

She chortled then let it grow to a full laugh. “Is that what you call him? Oh, that’s good.” She left her head flop back on the edge of the sofa and stared at the ceiling. Then she closed her eyes. “I should probably eat something.”

“Probably, if you plan on keeping up with me shot for shot. Lemme see what Charlie has.”

“All right.”

He came back with choices. “We have baked bloatfly or squirrel on a stick.”

“Squirrel,” she slurred slightly. He wrapped her hand around the kebab so she wouldn’t drop it and watched her eat. She tore into the meat with her teeth almost delicately. “Mm, so much tastier than DC squirrel.”

“Better?”

“Yeah, thanks.” When she was done she wiped her hands down on her pants and eyed the dish of bloatfly.

“Want that too?”

“Ugh, I hate bloatfly, but I probably should.”

“I see your eating habits haven’t changed.”

“Growing up I never had to eat bugs and varmints. You try adjusting to that diet, see how well you like it.”

“All right, all right, I get it.” He turned on the other end of the sofa so he could stretch out his legs alongside hers. It was so easy to fall back into their old routine, like no time had passed. It was almost surreal. She forked up the baked bloatfly with a look of distaste, but ate it all before settling back against the arm of the sofa again. “So, what’s your next move going to be?”

“I don’t know. We need more information. And we’re just not finding it. I mean, someone is taking our friends somewhere. They’re not just falling off the face of the planet. Who has the resources to make someone disappear like that?”

“The Brotherhood?”

“Nah, they’re not that subtle. And they wouldn’t kill unarmed settlers.” She lifted her head and peered at him. “Would they?”

“I don’t think so. Maxson’s an asshole, but he knows which side his bread is buttered on. If he was ordering his knights to kill settlers he knows it would come back to bite him in a serious way. Most of your old settlements have kept up their artillery. They’d blow the Prydwen clean out of the sky.”

“They’re Preston’s settlements now,” she murmured. “I hate this…not knowing anything. This is worse than knowing the Institute was out there. At least we _knew_ the Institute was out there being the boogeyman. This is…this is just flailing around blindly.”

“Val…” She sat up suddenly, her hair falling over her shoulder in disarray from its ponytail. He resisted the urge to tug on it until it was free from the tie.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she announced.

“What do you want to talk about then?” She looked him over, her eyes heating as she took in his length stretched out. He had never fully understood her attraction to him, although he wasn’t going to complain about it. He’d bulked up a bit over the years, the result of more food and fewer chems. He still liked getting high, but it wasn’t his sole reason for being anymore. The way she was looking at him made him think she appreciated the view. She tipped her head to the side, a posture so endearing he felt his heart clench. Her hair slid over the scar, obscuring it and for just a second she was the same woman she’d been so long ago. Sweet, sharp, clever, sexy… _his_.

“If I asked, would you take me back?”

“Are you asking?” he breathed, thrown a little that she would just come out with it.

“No…” She sounded unsure. “I just…I wonder if you would. If you could ever be willing to…to trust me again…”

“Val,” he sat up too and took her face between his hands before he could second guess himself. “It was never a matter of trusting you. Or distrusting you. But you’ve got your monster of a boyfriend, remember? Why are you even talking about this?”

She shook her head in his hands, making no effort to break the contact. Her eyes were sad but there was hope trying to shine through. “He’s not…we’re…I think we’re done.”

“What do you want from me, Val?” Their faces were just a breath away from each other and it was hard to keep the distance. He knew he should let her go. He shouldn’t fall under her spell again, but he was helpless against it, always had been. She made a sound almost like pain.

“You. I just want you.”

She propelled herself forward and he had to catch her with his arms or let her fall on the floor. She pushed his hat off his head and captured his mouth with hers. With a groan he stopped trying to fight it and just took all she had to give. Her lips were warm and soft against his, her tongue tasted of whiskey and her own sweetness. He crushed her to him, molding her to his body. Her hands raced over him, cradling his bald head, cupping his shoulders, running down his chest between them. They were impatient and seeking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt anything so good.

 _Her, she was the last thing that felt this good. She always felt this good_.

He pulled back and took a deep breath. She stayed half sprawled on his lap, her legs hanging off the edge of the sofa. He traced the scars on her face and she closed her eyes as his fingers moved along the marks. He moved his hand to her throat, pushing back on her jaw until she tilted her head back and he could see them clearly. They disappeared into the collar of her armor and he toyed with the edges he could reach. She made a noise in the back of her throat.

“Come back to the State House with me,” he whispered. “I want to have a proper look at these.”

She hummed assent. He cupped the back of her head and brought her back to his mouth, devouring her. She opened up for him, biting at his tongue, his lower lip. Her hands were clenched in the velvet of the frockcoat. Heat washed through him, pooling in his gut and making his hands shake. He couldn’t get enough.

“You’ll have to stop kissing me long enough so that I can stand up,” she said breathlessly as his lips moved down her throat.

“Hmm,” he replied, licking the scars and feeling her shiver in his arms. “In a minute.”

“All right…” He unlatched her breastplate on the left side, just enough that he could slip his hand under it and cup her breast. She hissed, but it wasn’t from pain. She arched her back, giving him greater access. He wished he could pull all her clothes off in the VIP room and take her right there, but he was starting to hear people coming in. He could hear Magnolia singing and Charlie’s glasses clanking as he poured out drinks and passed them down the bar.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, reluctantly letting her go. She stood up shakily and found her boots, not bothering to lace them up. He found his tricorn and dropped it on his head. She giggled like a girl when she looked at him. Her face was flushed and carefree, as if he’d released something from her soul that had been weighing her down. He’d missed that look in her eyes.

Somehow they made it out of the Rail, her fingers intertwined with his as they climbed up the steps to the entrance. Once they were in the street they stumbled, laughing and touching, around the corner away from her house and towards the door of his. She pulled on his arm and landed with her back slammed up against the side wall of Kill or Be Killed. She wrapped her leg around him as he swooped back in to kiss her more. She was as ravenous as he was.

He was so caught up in keeping his mouth on hers that he didn’t hear the creak of the front gate open, then slam shut again. But he did pull away and turn when he heard the gasping voice call his name.

“Han…Hancock…”

MacCready slumped into a slack limbed pile on the stones in the open courtyard of Goodneighbor, bleeding from several wounds. As he and Val turned to look at him, and then started to rush towards him, he fell over, unconscious.


	12. History

Hank flipped through the Grognak he’d already read but he couldn’t seem to concentrate. Charon was in the kitchen, cleaning his shotgun methodically…again. Hank sighed and got up to wander over to the table, turning a chair backwards to drop into it with a thump. Charon spared him a single blue eyed glance and went back to his work.

“Man, I don’t get you sometimes,” Hank said. Charon grunted. He pressed on, knowing that if he didn’t, his best friend wouldn’t say a word. “You’d think after so many years I’d have a better handle on how your mind works. It’s been what…twenty years?”

“Twenty one.” Charon took apart his stock with a satisfying clunk and pulled apart the pieces to wipe each one down individually.

“Tell me why, after all this time, you’d let her go so easily?”

“I’m not the one she loves.” There was no bitterness in Charon’s voice, no tinge of even sadness or regret. Just acceptance, as if he’d always known and it had always been okay.

Hank shook his head. “Why did you come with us then?” he asked softly, already predicting the ghoul’s response.

“You are my employer.” Hank could have mouthed the words along with him. For 21 years – ever since he’d bought Charon’s contract from Ahzrukhal – Charon had faithfully followed his lead. They’d seen a lot of things together. His father’s death, Madison Li’s breakdown after Project Purity was up and running, the transformation of a dead wasteland to something closer to alive…they’d walked the miles together. Lovers had come and gone in Hank’s life, but through it all Charon had been at his side. Not like that, of course, the ghoul liked women.

Not that there had been many. There had been Tulip for a while, but she had wanted to stay in Underworld and he traveled too much to make it work.

Then they’d gone back to Megaton and that’s when they met her. Valara Thorsgaard. Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel, General of the Minutemen, whatever that meant, former Railroad agent and destroyer of the famed and feared Institute. Genevieve strapped to her chest, rifle over her shoulder. She was a mix of matron and warrior, with a wild gleam in her eye that dared anyone to cross her.

“MacCready sent me,” she'd told Lucas Simms upon her arrival. “Said I could find work here.”

“I’ve got work for you,” Hank had said. There was always work to be done, between his Brotherhood connections and his constant contract with the Regulators. Cleaning up the Capital Wasteland was more than a two man operation, and he welcomed her extra gun. And she’d been relieved both for the caps – although she didn’t really need them – and for their friendship. They’d shown her around town, introduced her to all the best people – Walter, Moira Brown, even Lucy West was still hanging around. She bought the sour mercenary Jericho’s old house when he left to find greener pastures and set herself up to make a home for her and her baby.

She didn’t talk about her past, other than to say she was from the Commonwealth and had been a Vault dweller like himself. She wasn’t exactly on the run, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t running away from something she didn’t want to remember. Hank understood that one all too well.

That first year had been something.  They were on the go a lot, but they spent a lot of time in Megaton too so Val could be with her baby, more than he'd spent at any one time since before Project Purity. The baby was so totally charming she could even get Colin Moriarty to smile at her. Val would joke and say it was genetics, but the laugh was sad and bitter and her eyes were flat. When they went out on the road together as a trio, Val would leave Genevieve with Moira or Lucy. She transformed their routine from boring to exciting as she learned about the world they lived in. And she and Charon began sneaking away at night when they thought he was asleep.

With all the Capital Wasteland fawning over him with praise and gratitude, it was a good life. Even when she’d taken that horrible injury when they went to the Deathclaw Sanctuary in Old Olney and had spent weeks recovering, they were all happy. For the first time since he’d left Vault 101 and found then lost his dad, he felt like he had a family around him. She was warm and caring, was closer to Charon than anyone other than himself and even took it upon herself to spend time with Gob. She was comfortable with ghouls, she said, and again her eyes would go distant and sad.

Then Colin had had his ‘accident’. Hank had hated the man for years, and didn’t bother to hide it much. When Val learned that he was essentially keeping Gob and Nova as slaves, she grew steaming mad and threatened to kill him herself. Hank still wasn’t sure if Charon had taken her words at face value about killing the drunken Irishman or if he’d acted of his own accord, and he’d never asked. Val had seemed to think _he_ was responsible for Colin’s death. Either way, Gob and Nova had been freed. Lucas Simms had looked the other way and never mounted more than a cursory investigation into Colin’s death. The saloon became Gob’s Place and Charon had become smug. Hank had no doubts the ghoul had killed him, after all as soon as he’d had Charon’s contract in hand he’d killed Ahzrukhal in front of everyone. But he’d left Moriarty alone until Val wanted him dead. As love tokens went, it was a strange one. But oddly appropriate, he supposed.

The years seemed to speed by, measured only by Genevieve changing from baby to toddler to precocious child as proficient with a shotgun as Charon. That little girl could take down mole rats and radroaches by the time she was six and had moved on to radscorpions by the time she was eight. She called them both ‘uncles’ and raced through Megaton as if she owned it. Val hated being away from her for any length of time, so when Gob disappeared on his way to see Carol in Underworld, there was no question of leaving her behind as they investigated.

And the closer they got to the Commonwealth, the more Val got tense and anxious. Hank had always assumed Gee’s father was dead and that was why she’d been alone. But he had begun to think the man was still around, and still in the Commonwealth. He’d finally cornered her about it one night as the others slept.

“Who is he, Val?” he’d asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does if we end up going there to find this private eye you keep talking about.”

She’d sighed and poked the fire with a stick and looked stubborn about it. But finally, in a soft voice almost too low to hear she’d said, “Fine, it’s old history anyway. His name is Hancock. He’s the Mayor of Goodneighbor. He doesn’t know.”

“And you want to keep it that way because…?”

“Because I left him, and it was harder than anything I’ve ever done, and that includes killing my own son who was a monster. And because he’s a ghoul.”

Hank had been surprised, not at the fact that Charon wasn’t the first one she’d been with, but that a ghoul could even father a child. She explained then what she knew, what she suspected. Experimental radiation chems. He’d shaken his head over it. What kind of torture had this man put himself through to become what he was?

“Does Charon know?”

“Yes, he knows.”

Hank had been stung at that. And he immediately chided himself for it. She was closer to Charon than to himself. He’d gotten so used to being the leader of their group, the leader of this wasteland, that he’d forgotten that in the Commonwealth, she was his equal in both terms of achievement and position. She was more, actually. She was a _Sentinel_ of the _Brotherhood_ , although she scoffed at the fact. She didn’t care for the Brotherhood anymore, if she ever had to begin with. They’d been a means to an end for her. He had to agree that Elder Maxson’s policies were a far cry from Elder Lyons’s. What he’d had his Paladins and Knights do to get the power core from Rivet City for their flying ship chilled the blood. He knew Val was solely responsible for that community still existing since she’d helped them rebuild and given them a store of fusion cores to keep the power running. And she’d done it all while pregnant, no less. Gee had been born there, he knew.

And now they were here, in Goodneighbor, and he’d met the man face to face. He’d seen the light in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, saw the heartache she put herself through being near him and far from her child – who was safe at the Castle, the stronghold of her Minutemen – and he’d watched his best friend slowly withdraw from her.

“Dammit, Charon,” he pounded his fist on the kitchen table, making all the gun parts jump and his friend raise his intense blue eyes to him for the first time.

“You’re not helping,” Charon said gruffly. “I knew all along it was only a matter of time.”

“How can you be all right with it?!” he shouted.

“Because I want her to be happy. She deserves to be happy.” With those simple words Hank realized he didn’t know Val. He knew her as a fighter, a staunch supporter of the Good Fight, as Three Dog called it, a willing helper, a healer of the land. But he didn’t know her. He didn’t know how her mind worked, even after all these years. But Charon did.

“I want you to be happy too,” he said, letting go of his anger. Charon shrugged one shoulder, like it didn’t matter to him one way or the other.

“Dammit,” he repeated.

“Hank, I have a better life with you than I ever had with Ahzrukhal. You know this. I am too old to think there’s more to life than what we’ve got.” He finally stilled his hands on the gun pieces. “I saw her run to him, shouting his name when he got hurt.”

“She’d have done the same for either of us,” Hank reminded him.

“She would,” Charon agreed. “But that’s not all of it. He knew what to do, Hank. When she collapsed, he knew what to do. I saw them afterwards. He loves her every bit as much as she loves him. Maybe more. Certainly more than me.”

“Is that why you sent her to him? Told her not to come home yet?” Charon just shrugged again and went back to his shotgun. Hank blew out a breath.

He was about to say something else when they both heard banging on the front door. The four solid thumps were Val’s code from when they’d been neighbors in Megaton; it meant _come right now_. The two men jumped up from the table and hurried down the stairs.


	13. Ambush

“Mac, can you hear me?” Val said as she held the merc’s hand. He was laid out on a table in Dr. Amari’s surgery in the basement of the Memory Den. He looked awful. He was pale from blood loss, had wounds over most of his body, burns and lacerations and bruises. Whatever he’d fought, they were formidable. And they had no idea how far he’d trekked to get back to them afterwards.

“I really need you all to step back,” Dr. Amari said, pressing on Val’s shoulder to gently push her out of the way. Nick and Hancock were crowded around the table at the other end.

“Please…”

“Valara, let me do my job,” the doctor said sternly. Val nodded once and let go of MacCready, forcing herself to step back.

“Right, sorry. We’ll be upstairs.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as he’s stable.” Val, Hancock and Nick trooped out of the basement and met Hank and Charon upstairs with a worried Irma.

“What happened?” Hank asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

“Amari is working on him now. He’s in bad shape,” Hancock said. His face was thoughtful, but pained as he remembered why the merc had been out there. “He was with Daisy. I know he wouldn’t leave her…unless…”

“Don’t you say it, John,” Val snapped. “Not Daisy too.”

“Sunshine, we gotta face facts here.”

“We don’t know any facts.” They were facing off, both of them head to head, fists clenched. It was as if their momentary interlude had never happened. There was only so much she could take in one day and she was ready to crumble. It was like balancing on a knife's edge; she was going to get cut either way.

“Children,” Nick said, his usually soft voice cutting between them. “That’s enough. John, she’s right, we don’t know anything yet. We won’t jump to conclusions. Val, John has a point,” he sighed. “It seems highly likely that that something happened to the caravan and we need to prepare for that news. All we can hope is that MacCready will remember enough when he wakes up to give us a clue.”

She rounded on Hancock before he could say ‘if’. “Keep your pessimism to yourself.”

“Val,” Nick said, and he sounded tired. “Tie your boots before you trip on them.”

At any other time it might have broken the tension in the room, but Val was strung too tight. Nick sounded like an exasperated father – which he was – but Val wasn’t having it. She kicked her boots off, sending them skipping across the floor of the Memory Den. She pulled the latches of her armor too, dropping it with a clang before she went back to pacing. Charon quietly gathered up her things and piled them neatly in a corner.

Hancock threw his hands in the air and stalked off. “Yeah, run at the first sign of a struggle, Hancock, very Mayoral.”

“Fuck you, princess. I’m gettin’ us some beers. Gonna be a long night.” The doors to the Memory Den banged closed behind him as he left and silence fell over the others. Val finally just sat on the floor near Irma’s favorite chaise lounge, letting the older woman pat her on the shoulder. She hung her head between her knees.

“You shouldn’t bait him, Val,” Nick said, concern warring with rebuke in his voice.

“Shut it, Valentine.”

“Valara,” Charon snapped. She subsided; no one could make her toe a line like he could. Funny when she thought about it. He’d willingly walk out of her life to allow her happiness with another, but he probably knew her moods better than anyone in the room.

Silence reigned until Hancock returned, carrying a full case of beers and a pack of cigarettes. He put the beer on a table and grabbed two. He waved a hand to the others for them to help themselves and he slumped to the floor next to Val, cracking open one of the bottles and handing it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s all right, love.” He pulled her under his arm and she leaned on him. “He’ll pull through. He’s a tough kid.”

“He’s not a kid anymore, is he?” she said. “God, when did we get old?”

“Speak for yourself, cradle robber.” She tipped her head back and smiled at him through her tears, then nestled against his shoulder and drank her beer. Her mood had swung with the volatility it usually did. Hancock seemed well able to roll with it, Charon noticed.

“Yeah, you are the baby in the room, aren’t ya?” she joked. He reached across her body with his arm to open his beer.

“Nah, I think that falls to Mr. Lone Wanderer over there, right?” he canted his head towards Hank who grinned ruefully. “How old are you?”

“Forty.”

“Jesus, to be so young again,” Hancock sighed. “How ‘bout you, Charon? You pre-war?”

“I don’t know,” Charon replied, which surprised Val a little. Normally the stoic ghoul didn’t answer such personal questions. “I can’t remember.”

“Which means it’s likely,” Hancock said with a nod of his head, taking no offense at the gruff tone. “Plenty of you old-timers don’t remember anymore. I swear only Daisy keeps track of her age, just so she can tell you she doesn’t.”

Val tightened her grip on her bottle as she thought of her friend. “You really think they were attacked on the road?”

“Yeah, I do. And I doubt it was random, love. We seem to be picking up on an MO here.”

“Fuck.” She finished her beer and got up to get another one. “You want your smokes, Hancock?” she asked as she crossed the room.

“Sure.” She grabbed them and a new bottle and went back to his side. For a long time there was no sound except the clink of bottle and the quiet crackle of Hancock smoking. No one even knew how much time had passed before Dr. Amari came up from her basement, tired and worn but happy to report that MacCready had made it through surgery and was resting quietly.

“He was shot several times with sophisticated laser weapons. The burns are extensive,” she said, accepting a brown bottle from Hancock. She made a face, but drank it down. “There was a fair amount of blood lost from other wounds, not to mention he has several broken ribs and is suffering from exposure. I don’t know how he managed to get here in one piece.”

“He’s scrappy, that kid,” Hank said. “Always was.”

“I forgot you knew him…before,” Hancock said idly. “So, Doc, will he make it?”

“I’m confident he’ll pull through the night. I’ll feel more able to make an assessment tomorrow. You should all get some rest. There’s nothing more you can do tonight.” She finished her beer and returned to her patient, nodding a goodnight to all of them.

“No sense hogging up Irma’s chairs,” Val said.

“I don’t mind, honey,” Irma said.

“That’s all well and good, but still…it’ll be day soon, and you’ll have paying customers. We can go back to my house.”

“Or the State House,” Hancock put in.

“I don’t need sleep,” Nick said. “I’ll stay.”

Val looked grateful and they all got up to leave. In the end Hank and Charon went back to her house while she and Hancock went to the State House. If it was strange to sleep in a bed not her own, it was stranger still to sleep in it alone. Strangest of all, it was Hancock’s.

“I’ll wake you,” Hancock said, before he wandered off. She didn’t think she would sleep, but practically before she heard him sigh into the sofa in the other room, she was gone.

***

“Hey, up and at’em, Val,” Hancock said some hours later, shaking her shoulder. “He’s awake.”

She wasn’t exactly rested, and she was rather hungover, but she hauled herself out bed and found her boots. She had no recollection of grabbing them before they left the Memory Den last night. Hank and Charon were in Hancock’s office waiting when she stumbled in. Well, that explained how her boots got there.

“Here, water,” Hank said, proffering an open canister. She made a sound that might have been ‘thank you’ and gulped it down.

Nick met them at the doors to the Memory Den, shaking his head at their collective sorry state. “Fine way to pass the time, beer and chems,” he sneered, but it was light-hearted. “You all smell like a broken down distillery.”

“You’re just jealous,” Val sneered back, just as lightly.

“Huh, I’m a respectable father now, Val.”

“Pfft, _that_ has nothing to do with it.” He eyed her with a frown but made no reply.

They went in and silently walked through past the memory pods – some of which were already occupied – to the basement. MacCready was leaning against the pillows on a raised gurney, his body swathed with bandages and wearing an expression that said Amari had dosed him pretty good with more Med-X than even Hancock would take all at once. Val saw both a nutrient bag and a blood pack hooked up to a tube in his arm.

“Well sh…crap,” he mumbled when he saw Hank and Charon. “How are ya, Mungo?”

“Better than you, Pipsqueak.” The two men clasped hands, although it was hard for Mac to raise his. Hank met him halfway. “Good to see you, MacCready.”

“And you. Charon,” he nodded to the silent ghoul. “Ah, Val…and Hancock. How is my lovely today?”

“Which one? Me or Hancock?”

“I dunno, there’s like four of you.”

“That’s a lot of Hancock,” she teased. She kissed an unbandaged spot on his brow and smoothed back his tousled hair. “How are you holding up?”

“Amari says I’ll be fine with enough rest.” He grew serious, or at least as serious as he could be with all those chems in his system. “You’re all here to grill me, huh?”

“You’re the first one to walk away from an…incident,” Nick said.

“Damn.” MacCready sighed. “Well, there’s not much I can say. We had made camp for the night. We had just passed out of the Commonwealth, right on the border when they seemed to come out of nowhere. Poof, ambush. They were all in power armor. _Old_ power armor. It was dinged and beat up to sh…heck. But I couldn’t seem to land a single shot on them. Like, they veered off or something. They had laser rifles and there were a lot of them. The other two guards went down in the first barrage. I only made it out because the Brahmin fell on me. They took Daisy, screeching and hollering until they shot her full of something that made her go quiet real quick. They went west…well sort of southwest. They had a vertibird.”

“Brotherhood?” Val asked.

“No, that wasn’t the insignia.”

“But there _was_ one,” Nick pressed. MacCready sighed again. He looked like he didn’t want to believe it, like he _couldn’t_ believe it, and when he spoke he looked at Hank.

“Yeah, I saw it. A circle of stars…big weird ‘E’ in the middle.”

“The Enclave,” Hank exclaimed. “Shit.”


	14. Perspective

Val stood with her hands on her hips looking at the old map of the Commonwealth she’d spread on the table. South of the Quincy ruins the map sort of ended in a bedraggled marsh with a single road leading further south, the remains of the old highway. Between the Commonwealth and the Capital Wasteland was a huge swathe of land that was mostly uncharted, although it was not entirely unknown to her. She, Hank and Charon had hiked those empty miles in their search for Gob, but they hadn’t known what they were looking for, so of course they never found anything. And many years ago, she and MacCready had followed that old highway out of the Commonwealth on the way to DC in the first place.

“I need a bigger map,” she mused, drawing Hank’s attention. Charon wasn’t there. He had gone down to the Third Rail to watch Magnolia sing and drink himself into a stupor. She hadn’t asked why, and she didn’t need to. They were each dealing with the whole messed up situation as best they could and she was trying not to get in his way about it. For two days they’d all been tiptoeing around each other.

“What are you thinking, Valley Girl?”

“Well Hunk-o-Hank,” she replied in kind, “I’m thinking that if the Enclave still has any remaining ports in the storm, they’re probably in the ruins of New York City. Mac said they went southwest, so that makes sense. There were a lot of governmental buildings there, and if what you say is true about the Enclave being what was left of the US government after the war, that’s where’d they be.”

“Where is it?” he asked. She tended to forget that while he was a Vault dweller like her, he was born to this generation. He didn’t know the world as she had known it. Twelve years of living in the ruins of the world hadn’t changed it in her head.

“We passed by its outskirts on our way here, but because we didn’t know what we were looking we were too far west.” She rolled up her map again and met his eye. “New York was the biggest city around in my time. God, listen to me, ‘in my time’.”

“You old pre-war relic,” he teased.

“No kidding.” She tucked the map back into its case and slid it back into its spot on the bookshelf where she’d gotten it. “The city was vast, and I presume its ruins are too. What we really need is a bird’s eye view.”

Hank worked out the idiom and her conclusion for himself. In order to find the Enclave remnants, they needed to be in the air or they’d never find it. “Are you seriously considering asking the Brotherhood for a vertibird?”

“Got any better ideas?”

He sighed with defeat, knowing she was right. “No. Think you’re up for it without killing Maxson out of hand?”

Val frowned. “I have no idea. Talk about being too young for the power he was given, and too big for his britches to boot. I’m thinking only you and I should go. Much as I hate to admit it, I’d rather not antagonize him needlessly if I want him to cooperate.”

“Charon isn’t going to be happy.”

“No, Hancock won’t be either. Or Nick for that matter. Maxson hates both of them.”

“Why…? Oh, because Nick’s a synth, right?”

“Right. The most recognizable synth in the Commonwealth, no less.” She began to pace, hands laced behind her back. Hank called it her ‘thinking walk’. “We’d need someone who can fly it, too. I’m not putting our lives into the hands of a Brotherhood pilot. Back in the day we used to joke that vertibirds were good for two things – crashing and exploding. For all their progress with preserving technology, they’re pretty terrible at using it. I’m not keen on going down in flames before we even get out of the Commonwealth.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, yeah.” She paced some more. “First things first. We need to get MacCready back to the Castle. Curie is there. I trust Amari, but Curie is far more capable. Her previous knowledge and subroutines are still part of her ‘programming’.”

“Explain that again?” Hank asked, leaning on a doorjamb to stay out of her way as she moved around the living space of her house in Goodneighbor.

“She was a Nannybot before she got put into a body, basically a Mr. Handy with a female operating system. And she’s a doctor too. Granted, she was the research kind, but still, her expertise in field medicine is outstanding. All Gen-3 synths have a processor that is the controllable part. It’s where the personality programming goes when they were made. Including their recall code and designation response.”

“Like I could have used on Harkness,” he said, thinking back to the one synth he’d known before meeting Curie and Nick. He wondered how many others he’d met without knowing it.

“Yeah, so I’m guessing. Harkness is pretty old comparatively. I’m glad you never told Zimmer about him.”

“That guy was a jerk.”

“No more so than the rest of the Institute,” she said sourly. Old pain surfaced but she suppressed it with an effort. “Before we go, though, I have a few things to take care of.”

“Like telling a certain someone about a certain child?”

“Yeah…not too sure how I’m gonna do that.”

“'Hey, Hancock, remember when I left and I was gone for ten years? Guess what? I was pregnant at the time and didn’t know it. Congratulations, you’re a dad'.”

“Don’t be facetious. To be honest, I don’t even know if I want to tell him.”

“Val…”

“I mean, obviously I’ll have to tell him she exists before we get there and she rushes me out of the blue like she will. But I don’t know if I want to tell him she’s his.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I don’t know if I want to stay here, and it wouldn’t be fair to get him all worked up over something that ultimately might not change his life.”

“I thought you loved him.” She stopped pacing at that and met his eyes. Her expression was complex. Hope, bitterness, regret, frustration…they all shined out of her face at once.

“Hank, I do. But c’mon, look at us. Half the time we’re falling all over each other, and the other half…” She heaved a sigh. “The other half we’re fighting to the death. It’s no way to be. And no way to raise Gee.”

“I agree with Charon on this one. Regardless of how things stand, or how they end up, he deserves to know. And you deserve to get it off your chest. Think of how angry he would be if he finds out he was the last one to know?”

“Pfft, he’s _already_ gonna be the last one to know. Everyone else already does.” She looked morose. He went over to her and hung his arm over her shoulder.

“Valley Girl, I have never known you to run from a fight. Why are you so willing to run from this one?”

When she looked up at him, her eyes were full of tears. “Sometimes love alone isn’t enough.”

“No, sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes it is.”

“Easy for you to say, mister single and loving it.”

“I don’t love it, Val. I’ve just never met the right guy and I don’t settle for half measures anymore.” He tried to make it sound joking, but knew he wasn’t successful. “Look, I get that you’re nervous about it. But standing here hashing it out with me doesn’t get the job done. Go over to the State House and tell him.”

“Fine, but I’m gonna go see Mac first. Bring him up to date.”

“You’re stalling.”

“Maybe I am, but I still want to see Mac.”

“Fine,” he snorted. He kissed her forehead and gave her a swat on the backside. “But don’t come back here until you talk to Hancock.”

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that Henry Neeson?”

“Yup, I do. Go on, get out of here.”

***

“A vertibird, huh?” MacCready asked when she’d laid out her plan. “Who would you want to pilot the thing, assuming you can get Maxson to lend you one?” He knew as well as she did that Brotherhood pilots were awful and knew she wouldn’t be willing to travel with one unless she had no other choice.

“I was thinking Sturges. He still in Sanctuary Hills?”

“Last I knew.” MacCready looked a lot better after two days of rest. He was still weak and his ribs were still mending, but most of his bandages had come off and the various laser burns were sealed up and clean. “Listen, Val…this whole thing with Hancock…”

“Oh, God, not you too.”

He took her hand in his, his face serious. “As a father, I am in a position to weigh in on this. You gotta tell him, Val. If something happens to you, someone will have to raise her. It should be him.”

“You telling me you wouldn’t do it?”

“I would, but _he’s_ her father. You think Lucy wanted me to raise Duncan alone? You think she would have been happy knowing someone else did? If nothing else, you need to make a contingency plan in case things go to sh…heck.”

She slumped into a chair next to his bed. Amari had finally moved him off the gurney and out of the basement yesterday and they were in comfortable privacy in one of the many side rooms of the Memory Den. “Still with the swearing, Mac? Pretty sure Duncan knows what swear words are at his age.”

“It’s a habit now,” he said, waving a hand. “I mean it though. I know you have your reasons for keeping him out of it, and I agree with most of them. Let’s face it, Goodneighbor isn’t a family oriented place, and Hancock has never shown much inclination to change that. But he’s also never had a reason. Parenthood changes a man.”

“You would know, I guess.”

“I would.”

“You do have a unique perspective here,” she was forced to admit.

“Uh huh. And you have a unique opportunity to start things over. Don’t squander it. Most of us never get a second chance.”

“You’re right, I guess.”

“Yeah, I know I am. Quit wasting time.”

“You can all go to hell,” she muttered.

MacCready laughed, holding his side when it hurt. “Let me guess, Hank getting on your case too?”

“Yeah. Even Charon was pushing me.”

“Maybe you should listen. I know more than most about waiting until it’s too late. If you’re gonna drag us all to the Castle, and I’m not saying I don’t want you to, because I want to see Duncan, and I want to rest in a safe place, you gotta tell him before we go. Yeah, he’ll probably be mad for a bit, and you might fight about it. But, truly Val? I think you’ll be surprised. I think once he has some time to think about it, he’ll be over the moon.”

“Maybe.”

“Hancock is a man who’s never thought he deserved happiness. Give him some.”

She looked at her friend, the one who’d been with her every step between the Commonwealth and the DC ruins while she was pregnant. She slowed them down on that trip, but he’d never once complained, which was totally unlike him. She’d been sick and weak and scared and he’d been her steady shoulder to lean on for long months on the road. He’d helped her prepare, and he was there when Gee was born. It was almost a pity she didn’t love him the way she loved Hancock. But she knew he was right.

“All right, Mac. I’ll tell him.”

“Good.”


	15. Moments

Hancock was slouched on the sofa facing the red velvet one Val had brought home so many years ago. There were memories there that ached, although not as much as they used to. He didn’t know how long he sat there staring at it but when he came back to himself, she was sitting on it, a crooked smile on her lips, her chin balanced on her hand.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi. Been there long?” He patted himself down looking for his smokes and finally found them on the coffee table.

“About five minutes,” she sniggered. “Good hit?”

“Musta been. Fuck me, what time is it?” He lit up and offered her the pack but she shook her head. _When did she quit smoking?_

“It’s a little after three.”

“Man, I…” He trailed off, completely losing track of what he was going to say.

She chuckled. “I’d ask if you had a minute for me Mr. Mayor, but you seem to have had quite a few already.”

“You need somethin’?” He opened a tin of Mentats and popped one in his mouth. When he offered them she again shook her head. She never did like taking a whole lot of chems, he remembered. The grape taste mixed with his cigarette and a pleasant mind expanding feeling settled over him, making him more alert. Not by much, but enough.

“Just wanted to…talk.”

“So…talk,” he waved a hand expansively and grinned. She was perched there so primly, as if she didn’t want to sit there but didn’t want to sit anywhere else even more. His mind’s eye painted a memory of her sprawled on that cozy red sofa wearing only his hat. It flashed and was gone.

 _Damned Mentats_ , he thought. _Always making things so clear.  Too clear_.

“Would you happen to know if there are any maps around here from other parts of the country?”

“Huh?” She snapped her fingers, bringing his attention back to her.

“Maps, Hancock. Of like, New York.”

“I think we moved all that stuff to…”

“To the Castle,” she finished when he stopped. She nodded decisively. “Well, I guess that will work out since we’ll have to go there anyway. I want to take Mac back there to recuperate.”

“Can he travel that far?”

“I think if we go by wagon he’ll be fine. And between us, if we can’t guard a single beat up merc then we deserve what we get.” She paused and looked like she was collecting herself. Through the haze of smoke and his own heightened senses from the chems he thought she looked nervous. It was almost funny; Val nervous was something he hadn’t seen in twelve years. “Were you…uh…planning to come along?”

“You want me to?”

“I…yeah, I do.” She twisted her hands together and wouldn’t meet his eye. There was something she wasn’t saying. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette. He went over to her and plopped down next to her. If anything she grew more nervous. He had to admit he was enjoying it a bit. Sort of like when they first knew each other, before recrimination and guilt and rancor killed what they had. When it was new, when he still got a thrill in his gut whenever he saw her.

 _Who are you kidding, you still do_ , he chided himself.

“Val…what’s on your mind?” She faced him, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, showing him that scar clearly. With a lazy finger he traced it gently. She got very still and almost blank, like she hadn’t expected it but didn’t want to appear startled.

“Hancock, there’s some stuff I need to tell you…” She sort of stuttered to a stop, her face crumpling up for just a second before it smoothed out again. “Fuck it,” she said then and leaned forward into his touch.

He drew her closer and kissed her. It wasn’t like before, rough and angry. No, this was passion, pure and simple. She moaned into his mouth and pushed him back until she could climb on top of him. His arms came around her as they had a hundred times before. He pulled up the tucked in hem of her shirt so he could get at her skin. She was smooth and warm under his fingertips. When she finally pulled away from the kiss her eyes were glazed.

“I still want you,” she murmured. “I never stopped.”

“I know,” he murmured back.

“I still love you,” she said but it sounded pained, as if she’d tried to forget it, or maybe move past it. “No matter what happens, John, know that. Know that I have always loved you.”

“Oh, Sunshine…”

“Shh, just kiss me again.”

“I’m gonna do more than that,” he promised. She smiled, sadly but there.

“You were supposed to examine my scar, right?”

“Right.”

She leaned back and tugged open the buttons of her shirt, drawing it off her shoulders and arms. Underneath she wore a simple tee, faded from too many washings. That was stripped away too, leaving her in a plain white bra. He unhooked it himself, his eyes never leaving her face even as he pulled the straps down her arms, leaving her bare. His roughened palms fitted over her heavy breasts and she closed her eyes from the simple pleasure of it.

“Val, you’re still perfect, don’t let anyone ever tell you different.”

“You’re such an idiot,” she said throatily, tugging him so he was leaning over her as she fell back against the arm of the sofa.

He placed his mouth on her neck, right over the scars that ran down her body like stripes. He followed them down her chest, stroking with his tongue and nipping with his teeth, hearing her breath catch and hold. He worked his way down until he could suck her breast into his mouth and she arched into him. He braced her back with his hands, lifting her in such a way that she could move her legs until he was between them, separated only her jeans and his clothes. He released her and started to pull off his frockcoat and shirt. She eagerly helped, slipping buttons and yanking on his flag. Her nails scored his warped skin and made him groan. She’d never shied away from his skin, not once. He had never stopped to thank whatever deity must be watching out for him for that. He did in that moment.

“Val…I’ve missed you.”

“And I you,” she replied. She popped the top of her jeans and unzipped them, shoving them down her hips even before he could move out of the way to strip off the rest of his own clothes. When they were finally naked he lay between her legs again, their skin melding together. It felt like he was becoming whole again. She let loose a chuckle, warm and breathy. “I forgot how uncomfortable this thing was.”

“Wanna go somewhere else?” he asked with an arched brow. Moving to his bed meant going past the Triggermen outside the door. She shook her head with a gleam in her eye. At least she’d closed the doors to his office when she’d come in.

“Come back here.” He pressed his body into hers, capturing her mouth again. She wrapped her long legs around his hips, his cock falling into the space between them, already hard. She made a small sound, like a whimper. He reached between them and lined himself up, sinking into her inch by inch. She jerked her hips up suddenly, taking him in all at once. He sucked in a sharp breath and how tight she was around his cock.

This… _this_ was what he’d missed most. The heat of her, the moans clawing their way out of her mouth, her hands restless on him. With his left knee on the sofa between her legs, and his right leg braced on the floor, he pushed into her deep, spreading her wide before he pulled out almost all the way. Her hips rolled with his motion and she panted. The afternoon sun poured through his windows, bathing her in light. Her skin was like porcelain, so clear and white he could see the blue of her veins under the skin of her breasts. Her face contorted with every slow easy stroke as she grew wetter and hotter around him.

She’d thrown her head back, eyes closed, lip bitten, moans swallowed so the Triggermen didn’t hear. It was almost more than he could bear and he fell across her body, covering her mouth with his so she could groan down his throat as he pumped steadily into her. Her breaths started getting uneven, more urgent and he knew it was building up in her. He changed his angle so that his cock rubbed against her clit with every stroke and she bucked, her teeth latching onto his bottom lip so hard she nearly drew blood. He rumbled with laughter and did it again and again until she went tense and grew so tight he could feel her pulse around him. He watched her ride the orgasm like a wave and when she started to come down from it he slid his hand back under her shoulders, lifting her up and shifting so he was sitting on the sofa and she was straddling him.

“I see you haven’t forgotten how to do that,” she breathed, grinding her hips into his. He licked the sweat off her breasts, drawing the nipples into his mouth instead of answering, although he had a wolfish look in his eyes.

She gripped the back of the sofa and rode him hard, the way she knew he liked. His hands wrapped around her hips, guiding her and keeping her where he wanted her. Before too long though he had threaded his fingers into her hair, tugging on her scalp so her head fell back, exposing her throat and making her clench on him. And still she rode him, never stopping, slippery, tireless and so, so hot. When he came it was like a starburst inside his head. She groaned along with him, the steady spasm of his cock tipping her over the edge again.

***

“So…you had ‘stuff’ you needed to tell me?” he said later, after they’d lounged for a long time, wrapped up in the poignancy of the moment before she’d shivered in the chill that was coming over the State House as the sun set. They were dressed again, and outwardly presentable, although her shirt remained untucked and his remained unbuttoned.

She sighed and moved away from the little red sofa to pace around the room. He got the distinct impression that he wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say, and that’d purposely stopped herself from saying it earlier because she’d wanted him to make love to her first. Finally she stopped, and he didn’t fail to notice that she stood directly opposite from him on the other side of the room, the whole length of the coffee table between them.

“There’s someone at the Castle, someone you’ve never met. She…she’s my daughter.” She took a deep breath and put out her chin and waited for his response.

“Like actual daughter or adopted like Nick’s boys?” he asked, guessing from her posture that it was the former.

“Actual daughter. She was born in the Capital Wasteland. She’s the reason I was gone so long.”

“Because who would be crazy enough to travel through a nuclear wasteland with a baby.” He knew his voice was flat with shock but he couldn’t help it. Who had touched her? Who had planted this seed?

“Hah,” she barked, a touch sharply. “Or cross it pregnant, right?”

He was missing something. Something big. Something…

He raised his eyes to hers and saw the look she was giving him, equal parts nervous, worried and defiant. She was daring him to deny it. Impossible. No, it was _not_ possible.

“Impossible,” he stated, jumping up from the little red sofa, stalking across the room, skirting the coffee table with a grace that he barely even registered in his haste to get in her face. “No.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“How!”

“You turned by chems…not rads…”

Sudden, molten anger boiled over in him. She’d kept it a secret, she’d put herself through untold danger with a fucking _baby_ inside her body, she’d raised that baby alone…well, no, not alone. With someone else. With her precious Lone Wanderer and his pet ghoul that she had been fucking. And all without telling him, without a single note or message or letter. And she’d waited until now to tell him about it, only now when he might be faced with meeting this child he’d never known about. He knew it was unreasonable, and he knew that she had been afraid of this exact reaction, but he couldn’t help it. He was so incensed he could barely think straight.

“Fuck you, Valara!” he shouted. She flinched, actually flinched from the rage on his face. He took a very conscious step away from her, his fists balled at his sides. “How could you keep this from me?”

“What would you have had me do? Huh? You said it yourself, what kind of crazy insanity would it be to cross a nuclear wasteland with a baby?”

“MacCready knew, didn’t he?” He wasn’t asking so much as stating, but she nodded, her eyes closed tight against his palpable ire. “Who else?”

“Charon and Hank.” Of course. “Preston knows, since he’s the one watching over her.”

“So I’m the last one, eh? I’ll bet a stack of caps you already told Nick too, right?”

“Yes,” she barely breathed.

“All these years, I worried over you, I wondered where you’d gone, if you were even fucking alive! And now this…heh…” He stopped and turned away from her. “I can’t believe you. You know that? I don’t.”

“Hancock…”

“No. No more. Not right now. I just…just go. I need you to go.”

She fled.


	16. Breathe

Val never thought she’d ever end up being grateful to raiders.

The long walk from Goodneighbor south towards the Castle was a quiet one to be sure. Mac spent most of his time in a drug induced stupor. Val made sure she packed a refreshing beverage for him since she was keeping him so dosed up on Med-X there was no way to avoid the addiction he was going to get. Hank and Charon were lost in their own thoughts, although it wasn’t hard to see what they were. They knew she’d told Hancock and silently took up a permanent post at either shoulder. Nick had gone back to Diamond City to spend some time with his family; he would meet them later on once they had their plans in place. And Hancock…Hancock stayed in the rear of their little party, too far away for conversation, too angry at her still to do more than throw dirty looks at her back. The only creature in their party who made any noise was the pack Brahmin pulling the wagon.

But when the raiders spilled out of Andrew Station, they all took up automatic positions, weapons drawn. And when she got caught in a crossfire and was pinned down behind a car – a less than desirable place to get stuck when one was a soft skinned human – Hancock came out of nowhere, his shotgun going off in double blasts again and again until the area around her was clear.

“You good?” he asked stiffly, not looking at her.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He nodded once and walked away. It was the first time he’d spoken since they left Goodneighbor yesterday. Moving at the speed of pack Brahmin was not the fastest pace in the best of times, and at this point she was ready to pop a Buffout and sling Mac over her shoulder and make a run for it just to get this trip over with. But he’d not only spoken to her, he’d jumped in to defend her against the raiders. Maybe there was hope yet?

She picked herself up from behind the car and joined Hank and Charon as they systematically stripped the bodies of ammo and loot. Hancock stayed near Mac as the Brahmin wandered idly in an alley.

“Just keep breathing,” Charon said softly at her elbow. Her head shot up to meet his eyes and he smiled gently. She wanted to lean into his strength, soak it into her, but she just knew it would make things worse if Hancock saw it. She was fairly positive that some of his anger was jealousy. He’d never been a particularly jealous lover, but time can change a person, and he felt aggrieved to boot. Justifiably so, she acknowledged, so she would do what she could to minimize it.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Anytime, Sweetpea.” He moved away before she could call him on continuing to use the nickname he’d given her after their first night together, so she just shook her head at his back and took a deep, calming breath as he recommended.

“Time to turn that pack animal,” she said aloud to whoever might be listening and was a little surprised when Hancock slapped its rump with the butt of his shotgun to get it moving again. The two heads of the cow mooed discordantly but it started up again, heading more or less in the right direction. Hank and Charon fell in beside her as they ambled off once more.

The sun was setting as they passed the Gwinnett Restaurant. Hancock had abandoned his spot next to the wagon to go on ahead and start clearing the super mutants out of their path. Val stayed with Mac as Hank and Charon hurried to catch up to him and lend him a hand.

“We almos’ there, Val?” MacCready croaked out.

“Almost, Mac. We’re at Gwinnett.”

“Good, gettin’ tired of this damned cart, slow as sh…ah, screw it. I’m tired of this shit, Val.”

“I know, Mac, I know.” She held his hand in hers as she walked besides the slowly moving wagon. He squeezed her fingers and she knew he wasn’t talking about the slow journey.

They passed by the dead mutants who had all been thoroughly picked over and passed between derelict buildings until the Castle came into view on the horizon. The setting sun cast a long shadow up the high walls and the Minuteman flag flew proudly on each battlement. Val felt a surge of something like pride. As the sun slipped beneath the buildings behind them, the spotlights came on, lighting up the whole place like a beacon.

 _Home_ , she thought.

She spied shadows moving on the walls and knew they’d been spotted. She breathed a little easier. They’d made it. A contingent of Minutemen met them just outside the graveyard with its quiet monuments and forgotten graves and escorted them the rest of the way. She moved off ahead of the others to catch up to Hancock, who was walking steadily towards the Castle, his stride lengthening with each step. He glanced at her sidelong as she matched him step for step but he said nothing. She glanced back and laughed to herself. He was doing his best to hide it, but there was less tension in the set of his shoulders. Now there was more nervousness. She kept the silence intact and left him behind, her long legs eating up the ground until she was nearly running towards the opening in the walls.

“Mama!” she heard when she was still a hundred feet and away and she gave up any pretense of walking and broke into a jog. Genevieve threw herself at Val, her dark brown curls bouncing around her face, her shotgun over her shoulder. “Mama, Preston let me shoot at targets today.”

“Oh yeah?” Val said, wrapping her daughter tight in her embrace, lifting her right off the ground. “Which ones did you hit?”

“All of them!”

“That’s my girl. Oh, I missed you so much, baby. Give me a kiss.” Gee turned up her little face and mushed it into Val’s who made a grossed out sound, setting off the little girl’s giggles. “No, a real one.”

“Fine,” Gee said, kissing her cheek. Val held her close for another moment before putting her down on her feet and walking the rest of the way into the Castle with her.

“General,” Preston greeted her with a broad smile.

“General,” she replied with a smile of her own. He laughed sheepishly and she hugged him.

“The others?”

“Right behind us. I couldn’t wait any more.” Preston’s gaze moved off her and over her shoulder and she knew Hancock had come into the huge open space at the center of the Castle. Preston looked back to her quickly, as if he had been caught at something, but he kept his face clear of the frown he usually wore around the Mayor of Goodneighbor. Too late Val remembered that they did not get along particularly well.

“Hancock,” he greeted the ghoul civilly.

“Garvey,” Hancock replied in kind. She could tell without looking when he caught sight of Gee. She spun around slowly to face him, Gee’s hand in hers.

“Hi,” Gee said to him, her little face open and trusting. She’d grown up around so many ghouls that another made no difference to her.

“Hi,” Hancock said weakly, crouching down so he was level with her. “Jesus…” he breathed, his black eyes sliding from the child to Val. “Those…those are my mother’s eyes.”

“I’m Genevieve,” the child said, confused. “Mama says it means ‘God’s Blessing’.”

“It sure does.”

The rumble of the wagon entering the Castle distracted them at that moment and they all turned to see Hank, Charon and Mac come in surrounded by the Minuteman escort.

“Uncle Charon, Uncle Hank!” Gee shouted and ran to them. Hancock stood up again, still shocked but trying hard to overcome it.

“You’re not the very last one to know,” Val said quietly watching her daughter greet the two men she knew best. Hancock turned to her, his face unreadable, but his eyes filled with a wealth of things. She smiled at him encouragingly before turning back to her daughter. “Hey, Gee, you got to see us all arrive. Now it’s time for good little girls to say goodnight, I’m sure.”

“Aw, c’mon, Mama. You just got here.”

“And we’re not going anywhere for a while, baby. Go on, say goodnight, but be careful with Mac. He’s hurt.”

“All right,” Gee sighed, but dutifully kissed everyone and climbed into the wagon carefully to wrap her skinny arms around Mac for an extra special kiss. She hopped down and her body posture reminded Val so much of Hancock she stiffened. How had she not seen that before? She could tell from his sharp indrawn breath that he’d seen it too.

“Val…” he said and stopped. He sounded a bit like he’d just run a marathon.

“After I tuck her in, okay?  Just…breathe.”  _Thank you, Charon, for sensible advice when no words suffice_ , she thought.

“All right.”

“C’mon baby girl.  Let’s go.”  She tucked Gee’s small hand in hers and led her off to the old quarters she’d kept here since they’d first retaken the Castle, all those years ago.  Preston had never moved into them. 

After some extra cuddles and more stories than she knew she could make up, Val kissed Gee’s forehead and turned off the light in the big room.  Gee looked small in her bed, but comfortable.  In the weeks she’d been here she’d made herself quite at home, Val noticed.  There were stuffed animals from Nuka World around her, as well as the ratty teddy bear she’d carried all the way from the Capital Wasteland.  On the work table was a microscope and the disassembled parts of something or other spread all over the place.  On the edge of the table was a stack of pre-war books, and on the wall, tacked with what looked like bent screws, was a painting.  Val smiled and turned away. 

They were here. They hadn’t killed each other. She’d lived through seeing her daughter meet her father for the first time. It may yet turn out fine.

Now to face Hancock.


	17. Happy

Hancock looked out across the water from the top of the wall. He sat on the edge, feet hanging over, cigarette burning away forgotten in his hand. Night had settled onto the Castle and the bustle was winding down from the day. The market closed up, even the bar, and settlers began finding their beds in the numerous small shacks that dotted the interior of the old Fort Independence. The strains of violin music still played on Radio Freedom, but the volume was lowered so that it was softer, filling the background instead of being a constant distraction. In some ways, nothing had changed out here.

It had been years since he’d set foot inside Val’s former stronghold. When Preston became the General he felt less welcome, or maybe it was just that he became less sociable once she was gone. There was a dark period there he didn’t like to remember, when she’d first gone. He had never really emerged from that self-imposed introversion. He heard footsteps on the stone stairs that led up from the lower level and the clink of glass on glass. Turning his head he saw Val emerge backlit from the stairwell, two beers in her hand. She’d changed her clothes from the road leather she’d worn to something softer – jeans and a battered yellow jacket like most of the Minutemen wore. It was strange to see her dressed as one of them when she used to be their leader.

“May I?” she asked, standing a few feet away. He shrugged a shoulder and his arm pivoted to invite her as he threw his cigarette butt off the wall.

“Sure,” he said, approximating his normal tone. She sat next to him and handed him a beer. Being so close to the Gwinnett Brewery meant the Castle had the best beer in the Commonwealth, and with Curie’s additions and constant tinkering with hops and grains, it was always improving. The Castle was self-sustaining due to Curie’s insatiable curiosity. There was a joke somewhere in there, he knew, something about scientists being the biggest drunks because they had to test their product before anyone else did, but he didn’t have the mental energy to find it.

“So…?” Val asked, dangling her feet next to his, although no way in his space. They weren’t even close enough to touch and the two bottles were between them.

“So,” he replied and took a sip. Damn, whatever it was Curie did to the beer, it was worth it.

Val looked out at the harbor and breathed deeply of the salt air and the smell of growing things in the gardens that topped the walls on each side of the pentagonal fort. Only the corners remained clear of crops, since that’s where the artillery cannon were. He’d chosen this spot for the view and the reassuring bulk of the cannon behind him that shielded him from view in the fort below. No one manned this particular cannon at all times since it faced the open water and very few threats came from this direction. Still, she must have known he would come back to this spot; it had once been their favorite.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said eventually, drinking her beer and gazing at the stars overhead. She seemed at peace and ready to accept anything he had to say. There was some comfort in speaking in the dark, he supposed. They had no need to look at each other, and that made the words come easier.

“What is she like?”

She chuckled under her breath. “She’s like you. Fearless, reckless, intelligent. Like, scary intelligent. That child has read everything she could get her hands on. I swear she must know more about life in the wasteland than anyone.” She sipped her beer and leaned back on one hand. “I assume the curls came from you,” she added softly.

“Yeah.”

She chuckled again. “I’m having a hard time picturing you with curly hair.”

“I kept it short.”

“Hancock…”

“Look, I’m not happy you chose to hide her existence. I’m still a little overwhelmed that I managed to…well. But I can’t deny it, Val. Those are my mother’s eyes.” _Blue like sapphires, like the deep twilit sky_ , he thought. He’d thought he’d never see eyes like that again once his mother died. His own had once been the same dark brown his brother had, the only similarity between them. He hadn’t missed them at all once he turned ghoul. He never thought becoming a father would be one of the things he _would_ miss. “She has my face. Is she…all right?”

“She is.” Val seemed to know exactly what he was asking. The risks for children being mutated by the ever present radiation of their world were always high; they had to be higher still for a child fathered by a ghoul. “Back in the Capital Wasteland they have these machines that can map the genetic code. Old, but serviceable. Hank says that his father used one on him when he was born. Gee’s genes are remarkably clear of mutation. Probably because I’m pre-war, I never suffered any rad exposure until I came out of the Vault. I grew to adulthood in a world where that sort of thing just didn’t exist.” She paused and drank more of her beer. “Curie confirmed it.”

“So she knows too,” he said, a little sourly.

“No. I didn’t tell her. I just said that Gee’s father was from the Commonwealth, that he had been highly exposed to the conditions here. She seemed satisfied with that. She also said it was because of my ‘clean’ DNA that I was able to conceive her so easily. Because I’m so healthy in comparison.”

“Huh.” The silence stretched, but it was no longer uncomfortable. The idea that he was a father was sinking into him slowly, shuffling things around in his head to make room for itself. He had no idea what Val might expect, but he was no longer so angry. “I’m a terrible person to be a parent,” he said at last.

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re compassionate, smart, uncannily clever…”

“I’m a junkie and a lazy politician,” he retorted. “I’m a ghoul, for fuck’s sake.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a family,” Val said into the darkness. “You deserve a chance to be happy, Hancock.”

“Is that with or without you?” he inquired carefully.

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “With or without me. I know what I’d prefer, but I will leave it up to you.”

“How magnanimous.” The anger was creeping back in. Who was she to leave the ball in his court?

 _She’s a woman who loves you_ , he thought. _As she loves her child. She’s trying to give you a choice, dumbass_. He let his anger go.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just…”

“Hancock, I’m not expecting that you’re going to fall in love with her, or the idea of being a father, overnight. But if you’re willing to give it a shot, I want you to. I want to be a family. Jesus, Hancock, I want to be happy too, ya know.”

“You weren’t with strong and silent there?”

She turned her face to his in the darkness and he could see the starlight reflecting off her eyes. “No, not really. Charon is a good man, and I care for him. I’d even go as far as to say I love him. But not like I love you.” There was simplicity in that statement. It should have hurt to hear her say she loved another man, but it didn’t. Because he knew what she meant. Charon was a solid figure, cool under pressure, good in a fight, and Hancock could tell he loved Val – and by extension, Genevieve – with every fiber of his being. But _he_ was the man Val loved like that. It was mildly terrifying…and more than a little gratifying if he was going to be honest.

“I don’t know where to begin to be a father, Val.”

“It’s all right. She’s never had one, so she won’t know the difference.” She almost sounded like she was laughing. “None of us know what the hell we’re doing, Hancock. That’s the way life is.”

“All I can do is try.”

“I know.” She reached her hand out for his across the space between them, and he took it, scooting closer. Her grasp was dry and cool, slim fingers intertwined with his. She made no attempt to get her hand back as the minutes stretched out and for the first time in a long time, he was content.

“So, tell me what your plan is for finding this Enclave hideout.”

She sighed like this was going to turn into another argument. He nearly smiled, thankful she couldn’t see it. Middle ground had never been their strong suit. “I want to get a vertibird. We’ll never find the Enclave on the ground. New York is too big and we don’t have a lot of time if we want to find our friends. Or at least, I’m assuming we don’t. I don’t know what they’re doing with them.”

“A vertibird. That means dealing with Elder Shitwit, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not interested in going with you.”

“Really?”

“Why so surprised? You think I want to go up there to be talked down to like that? It’s not high on my favorite things to do list. Besides, someone should stay behind and keep watch over…Genevieve.” Her fingers tightened on his, a tacit sign of approval. He hadn’t exactly been looking for it, but it was nice to know he had it. “So after you get a vertibird, then what?”

“I need to make a trip to Sanctuary Hills. We’ll need Sturges to pilot the damned thing. And I need to find those maps. If I can maybe pinpoint a likely location it will make the whole thing easier.”

“Gonna save the world again, Val?”

“My lot in life,” she joked.

“Well, you have a pretty good track record.”

“Thanks.”

“What do you think you’re gonna find?”

“I don’t know. If they just wanted them dead, they would have just killed them. There’s something else going on here, and I have a feeling they’re doing experiments on them. Hank says the Enclave was responsible for some pretty horrible things out west and in DC. And they believe in the purity of the human race.”

“Sounds like someone else we know.”

“Yeah. But they had the means to achieve it. Some serum they wanted him to put into the water that would destroy all radiation mutated life. Which, let’s face it, would be damn near everything and everyone. It would be an apocalypse all over again. Now, I don’t know what we’re gonna be walking into, but it’s a fair guess that they still want to make that happen. Why they need ghouls for it…? It’s beyond me.”

“What kind of tech are we talkin’ about? Brotherhood level?”

“Maybe better. Remember what Mac said about the suits? They were old, but he couldn’t land a shot on them. They must have some sort of ballistic repellent or something.”

“Good thing the Minutemen use laser muskets, huh?”

“Heh, yeah.”

“You still got your old armor?”

“It’s downstairs, still in the station. I’m out of fusion cores though. I ended up giving them all to Rivet City so they could rebuild after…after Maxson and his soldiers nearly wiped them all out just to get their reactor to power the Prydwen.”

“Asshole through and through.”

“Evidently.” She let go of his hand and levered herself to a standing position. “Ugh, it’s late. I need sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day and I’m gonna have to swallow a lot of humble pie. Are we…are we all right? Are you okay with me going up there and talking to Maxson and dealing with them again?”

“Yeah, Val. We’re all right. I…I know you need to do what you gotta to get this shit done. As for the rest…” he sighed. “One day at a time. You go on, I’m gonna stay here for a bit.”

“Good night, then.” She touched his shoulder as she passed by him to go back down the stairs.

He stayed until the sun came up.


	18. Steel

The Boston airport hadn’t changed much in the years Val had been gone. There were the barracks she’d built, with cots and footlockers at each one, expanding the amount of privacy her onetime brothers and sisters had. There were no faces she recognized, but that didn’t surprise her much considering how long she’d been gone. A Knight in power armor greeted her and Hank at the entry, and he apparently knew who she was, although she didn’t know him.

“Sentinel,” he nodded. “Elder Maxson is not seeing petitions today, but he has given his permission for you to board the Prydwen, should you return.”

“Um…thank you, Knight.” She and Hank walked along the crumbling concrete to the vertibird landing spot and boarded a waiting one to ride up to the floating ship. They were as silent as the pilot and for a few moments as they rose unsteadily into the air she wondered if maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. But they had no others.

The Prydwen stank. She knew it was an uncharitable thought, but she couldn’t escape it once she noticed. It smelled old, used up, with too many bodies and not enough clean water. Hank’s scrunched up face told her he was thinking the same thing and they shared a smile and a chuckle over it. They found Maxson in the same spot he’d always occupied, facing out towards the Commonwealth from a viewing port, the glass darkened and foggier than she remembered. This old ship had not been meant for such a long tour.

“Elder Maxson,” she said respectfully when they entered. He turned and Val saw that ten years had done little to change him. His beard was as full as ever, the great armored coat still hung snugly on his compact frame. His eyes were still dark and intent, glowering out of a scarred face that nevertheless seemed serene.

“Sentinel Thorsgaard,” he replied in a growl. “For ten years you have been absent. Tell me why.”

“I left the Commonwealth, surely you knew that.”

“And yet you did not keep me apprised of your movements as you should have.”

“I made the Citadel aware of my presence.”

“Yes, you did. And I received word from them that you were there. That does not excuse your absence.”

“You told me once that as Sentinel you had no orders for me. That I was free to choose my own missions. I did so.”

“And what possible mission could you have had that would take you from here to the Capital Wasteland?”

“A promise to a friend.” His gaze slide over to Hank. Evidently he didn’t know – or didn’t remember – the friends she had made when she lived here. He didn’t remember MacCready. Not that it mattered ultimately, and she wasn’t interested in filling him in on the last decade of her life. Her personal life had never been his business.

“Ten years seems like a long time to fulfill a promise.”

“Life has a way of interfering with the best laid plans, Elder. You might know that if you had one outside of this ship.”

Maxson frowned, his irritation clear. “Insubordination is not tolerated, even from a Sentinel.”

She raised her brows. “Since when is the truth insubordinate? Not to mention I had a fair amount of work to clean up after you sacked Rivet City.”

He wanted to ignore her assessment, but he couldn’t disagree with her. He knew she was right. Everyone knew he was a brilliant tactician. As a human being, perhaps he was slightly less successful, if only from a lack of practice on his part. He didn’t respond to her dig about Rivet City. It wouldn’t have happened if they’d just given the reactor core without a fuss.

“So now you have returned. What brings you back?”

“The Enclave,” she said, dropping the name like a stone.

“What about them?”

“We have reason to believe they are rebuilding strength.”

“And upon what do you base this assertion?”

This was the tricky part, the part she knew he wasn’t going to like and would probably set him off and force a refusal to help simply out of hand. “There have been kidnappings. Of ghouls.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t care about the reduction in the number of filthy abominations down there.”

“You should. You may not like them, Arthur, but they are part of this population. And if what I believe the Enclave is up to is true, you will have more cause to care than I.”

“What are you talking about?” He frowned at her use of his first name, but knew that Valara Thorsgaard was never a woman to follow regulations. Making her Sentinel had been a tactical choice, one that he’d come to regret over the years she’d been away. There was danger in giving a woman with conflicting loyalties too much power.

“What was the aim of the Enclave, Elder?” Hank asked, perhaps sensing that he might have a better chance of getting through to the Elder than she did.

“I have no idea.”

“Yes, you do. Twenty years ago they wanted me to put their modified FEV into Project Purity. I know you were a child then, but surely you must remember. It would have destroyed everything touched and mutated by radiation.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Maxson said.

“Really? Are _you_ so untouched by it, having lived your whole life in this blasted out world that you think you would have survived?” Hank paused, letting his words sink in. They both could see when Maxson understood the full ramifications. “It would have killed everyone who had not been born in or lived in a Vault or a stronghold untouched by the surface. You and all of the Brotherhood of Steel would have been as susceptible to the poison of the FEV as practically everyone else.”

“Obviously, I am aware you did not do it, Henry. I’ve read the files Elder Lyons had on you.  And I have my own memories of you.”

“Correct. Arthur…we think they’re still planning to try to release it. We know there were other strongholds besides Raven Rock and the place they had out west. Regardless of how you feel about how much humanity has been altered by radiation, you know they must be stopped.”

Maxson paced, his hands behind his back, tightly gripped in each other. “You have a plan, I take it?”

“Yes, Elder,” Val said. “The most recent…incident…had a single survivor, a witness. He saw them heading in the general direction of New York City. It is my strong belief that there must be an Enclave outpost there.”

“So why are you here?”

“In order to find it in a timely manner, I would like to requisition a vertibird.”

Maxson stopped pacing to stare at her, incredulous. “You want me to give you the use of a vertibird, after ten years of defection from our ranks?”

“I may have been gone, but I did not _defect_ ,” she shot back. “And technically speaking I don’t need your permission to make this requisition. My rank still holds, does it not? But I am _asking_ you to do this. You cannot deny that we would all benefit from the Enclave being stopped.”

“No, I cannot deny it.” He sighed and turned his back to them, looking out at the view. “I will authorize this on the condition that you take one of my Paladins with you.”

“All right. Who?”

“Rhys. I know you worked with him in the past.” Val made a face behind Maxson’s back.

“Has he learned some respect over the years?”

“Careful now, Sentinel,” Maxson warned.

“I’ll be frank with you Elder, I would rather have someone at my back that I can trust won’t shoot me in it the first chance he gets. Yes, Rhys and I have worked together before, but that doesn’t mean either of us liked it.”

“It is my condition.”

She took a slow calming breath. “Fine. But I will not be held accountable if he gets himself killed. And I will remind him forcibly of my authority over him should he step out of line. Fair?”

“Fair enough. I will tell him he is under your orders, as long as they do not conflict with mine.” Maxson turned back to them, his face grave. “Do not make me regret this decision, Valara.”

“Oh, Maxson, what could you possibly do?” She smiled suddenly. “Gonna strip me of my rank? Do you think I care?”

“Do not play with my rules lightly, Sentinel. You are welcome here by my word alone. That can change.”

“And if it does the Enclave will win. Do you honestly think you would have the slightest chance in hell of finding them on your own? You didn’t even know there was a problem until we brought it to you.” He looked like he wanted to say something but she held up a hand. “I don’t want to argue about it, Arthur. The Brotherhood has done a lot of things, but not many of them have ever benefitted the common man. In many ways you and the Enclave are no different. I don’t care if you disagree with my opinion, and I’m not awfully concerned with how that comes across. We have more important things to worry about than who has the biggest dick. I’ll try not to crash your vertibird, okay? And you try not to blow a gasket over me getting my own way.”

Strangely, Maxson didn’t seem to be offended. In fact, he laughed. “I’d forgotten how blunt you are. Go, get your ‘bird. I expect reports.”

“I’ll do what I can. I can’t make any promises when I don’t know what we’ll find.” She and Hank turned to leave. “Oh, and I’ll send back the pilot. I won’t need them.”

“Valara…”

“This is not negotiable, Arthur. You want your bird back in one piece? You’ll do it my way. You can’t deny that your pilots have never been that good overall. This is a dangerous mission, in unknown territory. I’m not going to do it without people I trust at the helm. Understood?”

“Yes,” he growled, knowing she had him over a barrel. He didn’t like it, but then again, he had never liked dealing with her barely veiled distaste for working with the brothers and sisters she claimed to support as a Brotherhood member. “And Valara…when this is all over, you and I are going to speak on the matter of your rank.”

“Whatever, Arthur. At the end of this I’m likely to retire from it. Assuming I come back at all.” She could practically hear him grinding his teeth as she and Hank left.

“Well, that could have been worse,” Hank said as they waited for Maxson’s approval to be passed along to an unused vertibird. They waited for Rhys too; no sense having to come back again.

“I suppose.”

“I thought the whole point was not to antagonize him.” Val looked sheepish.

“Ah well, guess I could have tried harder.”

“Hah.” Rhys came out of the door leading to the interior, his customary scowl still in place.

“Elder Maxson says I’m under your orders, Sentinel. I have the requisition approval for this ‘bird.”

“Thank you, Rhys…I mean, Paladin Rhys,” she said, too sweetly to Hank’s ears. He shook his head in bemusement.

This was gonna be a long trip.


	19. Targets

“How do you know my mom?” Genevieve asked Hancock as they sat on the top of the Castle. The little girl had found him sitting alone with his smokes and a tin of Mentats. She was methodically taking apart her shotgun as she sat there, cleaning each piece with a scrap of cloth and a small bottle of gun oil.

Shit, he hadn’t been ready for that question and it caught him off guard.

“I knew her back before you were born,” he said finally, deciding that was neutral enough information.

“Were you friends?”

“We still are,” he replied. Watching her there was like watching himself as a child. Except that she was well fed, clean, well dressed and her weapon wasn’t a toy. He would have smirked to himself but he couldn’t get over just how much she resembled him. Even if Val hadn’t told him, he would have known as soon as he laid eyes on her.

“Did you know we came from far away?” the little girl asked as she slid the stock away from the barrel.

“Yeah, all the way from DC. That’s quite a hike.”

“Sure was. Mama was always worried about stuff attacking us, but it was pretty boring.”

“Better than the alternative,” he said before he could stop himself. Genevieve looked up at him sharply and for a second he felt naked under her gaze. _Like, scary intelligent_ , he heard Val say in his head.

“Uncle Charon kept me safe.”

“Did he…is he the one who taught you to shoot?” Hancock managed to ask without sounding like he was jealous. _Damn, where had that come from?_

“Uh huh. Said everyone needed to know how to be safe.” She looked down the empty barrels of the shotgun with an expert eye. She nodded in satisfaction of a job well done and started putting it all back together again.

“What do you think of the Commonwealth?” he asked, unsure even as he did why he wanted a child’s opinion. But it mattered to him all of a sudden. It mattered that this child somehow approved of this place her mother had built practically from the ground up.

“It’s a lot greener here than in DC. And there’s more farms. The food is pretty good.”

“Your mom built a lot of those farms, ya know.”

“Yeah, she told me.” She put the top back on the gun oil very carefully, as if weighing her words as she watched her fingers. “Would you…would you wanna shoot with me? Mama says if I go shooting I gotta have a grown-up with me.”

“Sure, kid. Lemme see what you’re made of.” Genevieve grinned and it struck him right in the heart. _Now that is her mother’s smile_ , he thought. “You need to tell anyone you’re with me?”

“Uncle Charon already knows. I told him before I came up here.”

Hancock didn’t reply to that. He didn’t know just how perceptive this daughter of his might be, and he didn’t want to risk her thinking it through too hard. But if the brooding, stoic ghoul hadn’t told her no, he figured she thought that was all the permission she needed. The attitude felt achingly familiar.

“What do you shoot with?” she asked as they crossed the windswept top of the Castle to the stairs.

“I use a shotgun too,” he told her. Her eyes lit up like he’d given her a present and goddamn, but it felt like he had.

“Like me!” she cried.

“Yeah…”

He retrieved his double barrel from his pack in the general guest area and followed her out to the target practice field outside the high walls of the fort. A range had been set up with razorgrain hay bales splashed with paint at one end and a roped off line at the other. Two Minutemen guards watched idly as the pair of them approached.

“So, can you hit that from here?” She gave him a look of pitying scorn and loaded pellets into the barrels without speaking. He suppressed a grin and stood by as she raised the heavy gun to her shoulder expertly and looked down the glow sight to the target. At least it wasn't live ammo.

“Watch this,” she said, her little voice muffled against the metal. She rolled with the recoil as she shot and dropped the muzzle to the ground, cracking the shotgun open to reload. He looked at the target and saw paint chips fly off from the center.

“Damn…” he breathed. “I’m impressed. Just like your mom.”

“That’s what she says too, although she doesn’t swear.”

He grinned. “Yeah, well, I guess I swear too much.”

“Everyone does it. I don’t know why she tries not to around me. Like I’ve never heard it before.” Again with the childish scorn. It was endearing. “Okay, let me see you do it.”

Hancock tended to shoot from the hip, but if this was a competition – and he had the feeling it was – he knew he needed to step up his game. He lifted his double barrel to his shoulder and held it steady. It was a little strange to aim while shooting and he knew he was probably not going to come anywhere near the mark she’d made, but hell if he’d give in without a fight. The shotgun went off and blasted away a whole chunk of hay from the corner of the target.

Genevieve laughed, a girlish giggle that made him smile. And made his breath catch in his throat as his heart squeezed. He knew without a doubt that it wouldn’t take much for him to be willing to lay down his life to protect that sound. He didn’t even question it. Children in the Commonwealth were few enough and deserved all the protection one could give them, but one of his own…he hardly knew what to do with himself. It was all he could do to stop himself from telling her who she was to him.

“Looks like you could use some practice,” she teased.

“Probably. I don’t shoot much anymore just for the fun of it.”

“Mama says practice makes perfect.”

“Do you shoot with her?”

“Sometimes. Not in a while. She’s been worried…about Gob.”

“Yeah, I know.” He lowered his gun and looked down her. Her little face was suddenly serious.

“Are you worried too? Do you know Gob?”

“I don’t know him, but I’ve heard he’s a good guy.”

“He owns the saloon back home,” she said, lining up her sights again. “He and Uncle Charon used to get into drinking contests.” She took her shot and seemed pleased when she hit nearly the same spot again.

“Heh, Charon doesn’t strike me as the type,” he mused.

Genevieve just grinned as she reloaded. “He always won.”

“I’ll bet.” It was his turn, and he used the time to think about how to phrase his next words. After he shot – much better, he thought – he asked, studiously casual, “You close to him?”

“Sure, I’ve known him my whole life. Uncle Hank too. They lived next door to us in Megaton.”

“Do you miss Megaton?”

“A little. I had friends there. Mostly grown-ups, though. There are more kids here.” She waved her free hand backwards to include the Castle. Hancock nodded; he’d already seen Duncan MacCready with her. The boy had turned lanky and coltish. He remembered thirteen. Never a good age to be. Plus there were all the children of the Minutemen, closer to her age. There was even a nursery now in the Castle.

Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sound of a vertibird’s approach and Hancock put a hand on her shoulder to propel her back inside the safety of the walls. She didn’t argue and stayed by his side as they watched the clumsy landing of the vehicle on the open road.

“What is that?” Genevieve asked, clearly awed by the sight.

“Brotherhood vertibird,” Hancock replied. A spurt of initial fear spiked through his gut until he saw Val’s dark head emerge from inside it. The ‘bird shut off and quiet descended once more. He saw Hank and the pilot jump down too, followed by a familiar face, one he’d never thought to see again. “Rhys,” he muttered.

“Who?” Damn, he’d just about forgotten she was there his surprise was so great.

“That is a Brotherhood of Steel soldier, Gee,” he said. “His name is Rhys.”

“And you don’t like him, huh?”

“What makes you say that?”

He looked down into her serious face. Gone was the impish delight in besting him at target practice. She had felt the undercurrent and read it like words on a page. “Mama says the Brotherhood doesn’t like ghouls.”

“She’s right.”

“Don’t worry, Hancock, I won’t let him get near you.” Her instant defensiveness on his behalf tugged hard on heartstrings already strung tight enough to snap. Trust Val to instill in her child all the things he loved about her. No bigotry, no racism. A well-honed sense of obligation to protect the downtrodden. Gee’s automatic response was to protect him from a threat because he was a ghoul. He put his hand back on her shoulder.

“Thanks, kid, but I’m pretty sure he ain’t gonna hurt me. Your mom would be mad.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah." He could tell she wanted to run to her mother, but he didn’t know if Val had said anything about having a child, so he figured he should keep her close for the time being. “But how ‘bout you stick with me just in case, huh?”

“All right.”

They watched Val and company go past and something like relief was in Val’s eyes when she met his. He nodded subtly, his hand still on Genevieve’s shoulder. Once they were gone, he turned to the little girl again.

“What do you say to some more shootin’?”

“Okay!”

"Ya know, I may not be as good as you with a shotgun, but wait until you see what I can do with a knife," he promised.  His daughter grinned.


	20. Politeness

Val was standing on the topmost step of the ladder she’d made for herself to reach up to the top of the seven foot tall bookcases that lined the conference room when she heard the door close behind her, followed by a resounding click as whoever it was locked it.

 _Hancock_ , she thought with surety; no one else would lock the doors of her conference room with her in it.

“Whatcha doing, Sunshine?” he asked, almost flippantly, confirming her suspicion.

“What does it look like?” she retorted, her back still to him as she reached for the rolled maps she knew were up there on the top shelf.

“It looks like a nice view,” he said. She heard the muffled thump of his shoulder blades hitting the door. She could just about picture him in her head. Arms and ankles crossed, tricorn tipped back so he could see her clearly, smug half smile on his face. She’d changed when she’d gotten back to the fort, not wanting to stay in the clothes that now stank of the Prydwen. She’d sent Rhys off with Hank to get settled in with the promise of a meeting of minds later on so they could buckle down and make a plan. So now she was dressed simply in ratty ancient jeans and a worn work shirt she’d left unbuttoned over a thin tee. She could tell that with her arms raised the hem of her shirt rode up over her waist. He always did like looking at her butt.

“You gonna help or you gonna stare?” she huffed as her fingers wrapped around the map tubes, pulling them ever closer to her reach. She heard his boots click on the stone floor as he came to stand nearby and she pulled the tubes out and handed them down to him. “Where’s Gee?”

“With Duncan and MacCready. Figured you trusted them to keep an eye on her.”

“Thank you, by the way, for keeping her occupied when we got here.”

“It was her idea, actually. She wanted to shoot.”

“I’ll bet,” Val snorted. “So, did she wipe the floor with your ass?”

“Pretty much.” He reached up a hand to her elbow as she unsteadily climbed down the stepladder. She jumped down from the last rung and basically ended up in his arms, hands braced on his chest for balance. “Well, hello.”

“Did you need something, Hancock?” she asked with arched brows.

“Not especially.” He leaned forward slowly, giving her plenty of time to back away if she wanted. She thought about it and decided she didn’t want to. She craved him too much. She parted her lips under his with a small sound and he took that as invitation to pull her in tight, hand threaded through her hair to cup her head. He plundered until she was breathless. “God I’ve missed that.”

“So do it again.” He had dropped the maps on the floor when he reached for her instead of putting them on the table where she’d meant for them to go. Instead he swung _her_ around and backed her up to it, hitching her legs up so she was sitting on the edge. He stepped between her parted thighs and kissed her again, tracing the scar with his fingertips, down her face, down her throat, down until his hand settled over her breast.

“What else can I do, Sunshine?” he purred in her ear.

“I have a meeting coming up you know.”

“So…?” He nibbled along the side of her neck, smirking to himself as she automatically tipped her head over so he could reach. “You gonna tell me to stop?”

“Damn you,” she whispered.

“I was damned the day I met you.” He captured her mouth again before she could reply, pushing the work shirt off her shoulders to plop onto the table. She wrapped a leg around his waist, pulling him closer.

 _It was always this way_ , she thought. _One touch, that’s all it takes_.

When he pulled away from the kiss to stoop down and take off her boots she plucked his tricorn off his head and dropped it on her own. He snorted but didn’t try to take it back. He’d always gotten some sort of possessive pleasure in seeing her wear it…so long ago. And even after all this time it seemed perfectly natural to do it. She hadn’t even questioned why.

When her feet were bare he gripped her ankles under her jeans, the heat of his hands burning on her skin. He ran a finger up her calf as far as he could reach under the baggy denim and made her squirm. He grinned, that same silly, shit eating grin he’d always had. Well, she could top that, wipe it clean off his face. With a quick tug she pulled off her tee and sat on her own conference table topless and daring him to do something about it. What he did was growl, standing up to kiss her again roughly while his hands covered her breasts, palms hot and tough like weather beaten leather. He let her go long enough to pop the snap on her jeans and lifted her right off the table to push them down her hips, taking her underwear with them.

“Why is it always fire?” she asked as his fingers dug into her bare thighs, spreading her open so he could get closer. It made him pause, pull back, regarding her with those black eyes she’d grown to love.

“Because that’s what we got. Fury and passion and heat. We got no room for politeness.”

“Do you regret that?”

“You wanna talk about it right now, or you want me to fuck you?” he questioned instead of answering. And her heart broke just a little bit. _No room for politeness_.

“Fuck me, Hancock.” He threw his flag sash on the floor and unbuttoned his pants, freeing his erection before pulling her to the edge of the table. He sank into her with a groan, seated only halfway because of the angle. She leaned back on the table, wrapping her legs around his hips so he could get deeper. Rough and soft, their constant dichotomy. With a steady thrust he surged into her, filling her, making her gasp. No matter how much he gave, she always wanted more. She craved it like air. His mouth on her skin, his hands tangled in her hair, his body spilling into hers.

With each drag and pull of his cock inside her she grew wetter. She grew pliant and accommodating until his hipbones slammed into hers. The table jerked, scraping on the floor loudly. She had no breath to laugh. He pushed her back until she was flat, her shoulders on the wood. And he pounded at her like a wave, making her wanting to cry out loud. His fingers danced across her skin, teased her clit, sending shock waves through her body. Even after all these years he knew how to make her sing, he knew how to make her body arch like a bow craving release.

When she came it was like a thunderclap, hard and insistent and almost painful. He braced his hands on the table and slammed his body against hers. Again and again. Again. She was going to get splinters at this rate. But she craved this too, the small amount of pain mixed with the unutterable bliss of his body heat washing over her, his hard length inside her, coarse and rough and gnarled as he was. She hadn’t had sex with a regular human in over twelve years, and didn’t think she would ever be able to go back to something that was lacking so much texture.

He mapped the length of her body with his hands, cupping breasts, skimming over ribs, dipping into the hollow of her belly, her navel, spanning her hipbones until he tunneled under her body to lift her by her ass so he could get as deep as he wanted. She felt the flood of his come inside her as he climaxed with a harsh groan. He pulsed inside her, so deep she could feel it against her womb. When she had breath and coherent thought again she looked at him, standing between her legs, his cock slipping from her as it softened. _No room for politeness. No room for gentleness_.

“We should clean up,” she said, steadfastly ignoring the twinge of hurt in her soul. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. “I imagine the frown on Rhys’s face would break him in two.”

“Heh, yeah.” Hancock stepped away from her, tucked himself back into his pants and buttoned them. “Damn, but it was worth it.”

She smiled. “It was. It always is.” He reached out his hand and helped her sit up, the gush of his come spilling out of her with the motion. When she stood up she knew it would run down her legs, obscenely warm and sticky. She needed a bath. She needed…

“Hey,” he said, so close she could see the faint outline of the pupils in his eyes in the bright light of the room. He stroked her cheek, his palm on her scar. He leaned in and kissed her gently, no heat, no urgency. He kissed her that way for a long time, until it felt like the world had just stopped.

“John…”

“I always did like hearing you say my name like that.” He grinned, lopsided. “You go on, get yourself cleaned up. I’ll do what I can about…this…” She glanced back at the table, messy with their sex and crooked on the floor, maps all over the place in their tubes.

“I’m never gonna see this room the same way again.”

“Huh, well, I can’t complain myself.”

“I do love you, you know.”

“I know.” His face had closed up again, that one moment of bare intimacy already cut off and hidden. She wished it didn’t have to be that way.

“John? Look at me.” He stopped gathering up the maps and looked at her. “Are we good?”

He sighed. “Yeah, we’re good, Sunshine.” He smiled. “We’ve always been good.”


	21. Power

A mangled nose might not take in much, but in a small confined space, it was hard not to. Charon didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing right now. The conference room smelled like sex. An ache he would never admit to twinged in him. Yes, he’d let her go. Yes, he knew she loved that man, that ghoul, who was charismatic and smart and charming. Who was all the things he was not. It had always been Hancock for her. Never Charon. It didn’t make it hurt less.

And there she was, quiet smile on her face, almost blushing when he’d come into the room. Like he wouldn’t know just by looking at her that they’d fucked. He always knew. He’d fucked her himself enough to know what it looked like, after all. She had maps spread out on the table, images of a world he could no longer remember except in snippets and flashes laid out flat. Clean air, running vehicles, green grass. Those things were gone. Forgotten by all but her.

“We all here?” she asked, too brightly and too loudly for the small space. But it got everyone’s attention. Hancock lounged against a wall, boots crossed, knife in hand, eyes on the newcomer in the orange jumpsuit. There was history there that simmered below the surface. The orange jumpsuit – Rhys, Val had called him – studiously ignored the ghoul, just as he had studiously ignored Charon when Val had been showing him around. Hank stood next to him, his patient gaze calm. General Garvey stood near Val, his face tight with awareness of the tension. Threads of gray ran through his short cropped hair and his eyes were tired, but he was a capable man. There would be no explosion of tempers in his fort if he could help it.

And then there was himself. He was capable too. He relied on it in moments like these, where so many things were unknown, unsure. He knew what he could do. He knew what he was willing to do.

 _Anything_ , he thought. _I would do anything to safeguard her_.

“Right,” Val said once everyone had more or less gotten into a position to see what she held under her fingertips. “This is New York. It’s fairly low lying, and I assume much of it is underwater at this point, but I don’t think our target is on the island of Manhatten anyway.” She shifted the map slightly, pointing off to one side of it. “This is where I think the Enclave is hiding.”

It wasn’t particularly remarkable. Just a dot on a map, a crossing of four streets to make a grid.

“Why there?” Rhys asked, his voice as stark and empty as his expression.

“This was the old UN building. That’s United Nations, a…conglomerate, I guess, of old world countries that tried to work together for the betterment of everyone. More or less. If any portion of the old government remained after the bombs dropped, it was likely there.” She paused and walked around the table to find another map, this one smaller, older but more detailed. It was a street by street type of thing, with buildings labeled and colored in. She spread it out on top of the larger one. “The morning of the bombs, I remember the news reporter saying there was a confirmed detonation in New York, so we’ll be walking into the same sort of ruin as everywhere else. I don’t know what kind of radiation damage remains. Rhys, you have cores for your power suit, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I have mine too, but I’ll need fusion cores for it. Hank, I have a suit for you as well. It’s in Sanctuary Hills.”

“Where the pilot is, right?” Hank said.

“Sturges. That man can do anything with mechanics, and make it look easy.” She shared a reminiscent grin with Garvey. There was history there too, but a happier kind. Old friends, trusted companions. A history he and Hank had had no part in but had shaped the woman they knew.

“And of course, we ghouls have no need of protection from rads,” Hancock put in, glancing up at her and then at him. He cracked a grin. Charon didn’t respond. Not because he didn’t want to…well, yeah, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be friends with the man who had reclaimed her. Petty, sure. He was only human.

“You’ll need armor, Hancock,” Val warned. “I’m expecting there’s still wildlife to deal with.”

“I got all the armor I need,” he replied, patting his ridiculous red coat.

“There is only so much protection in ballistic weave, and we know they use laser rifles.”

Hancock just grinned. He was cocky and self-assured. Charon wanted to hate him for that, but had to admit the man could handle himself well. He knew his own limitations, although he was reckless to the point of stupidity with his damned chems. Still, it wasn’t Charon’s place to judge. And he wasn’t required to watch his back. Only his and Hank’s. And Val’s.

“All right,” Val said, turning away from Hancock to face the others again. “Hancock and I will go up to Sanctuary and get Sturges and the other power suit and some cores. We should only be gone for a few days. Once we get back, we’ll get this show on the road.”

“What about Gee?” he asked, abruptly wondering why he did. Val hadn’t wanted this Brotherhood Paladin to know too much, lest it get back to the Elder, but there was a time and a place for secrets and this wasn’t one of them.

“I want to take her with us,” Val said smoothly, without missing a beat. Charon saw Rhys frown from the corner of his eye but the man stayed silent.

“Is that wise?” Charon asked.

“The roads are pretty clear, and I want to show her where I lived before. Spend some time with her. She’s getting bored.”

 _You mean you want her to bond with the father that doesn’t know is hers_ , he thought, but didn’t give voice to it. From the set of Val’s jaw, he knew she could tell what he was thinking anyway.

“Do you need us to come along?” Hank asked, as if he too knew what was on Charon’s mind.

“No. I’m counting on you to get us prepped. Long road, pack light.”

A wealth of memories filled his head. Other trips, other times. Packing light, just the food they would need, as well as ammo and tools for repairs and nothing else but the clothes on their backs. Between the three of them, they had still been able to haul a fair amount when ‘packing light’.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss?”

“I think we’re good, Val,” Hank said into the silence.

“Wait,” said Rhys. _Well, here it comes_ , Charon thought. “That child…is yours?”

“What of it?”

“You never told the Elder about her.”

“Nor do I intend to,” Val said with a tone of finality. Rhys frowned deeper, if possible.

“Sentinel…”

“Paladin…” she interrupted with a frown of her own. “My life, my business. Maxson knows what he needs to. The rest is not up for discussion. Understood?”

“I…yes, ma’am.”

“Good.” She looked around the room, catching each of their eyes. “Anything else? Then, let’s get going.”

She rolled up the maps and started putting them back into their respective storage tubes. Garvey and Hancock left and Rhys followed behind them. Hank gave Charon a silent warning to keep it civil – which was funny since he was never anything but – and left too. He was alone with Val for the first time since Finch Farm.

“You could have waited,” she said to him when the others had gone. The frown was still on her face, but she didn’t seem overly angry. He knew her when she was angry. This was just a cool simmer.

“I could have,” he agreed. “I didn’t.”

She sighed. “Why?”

“Do you think he’s going to tell?” he countered.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do, Charon. That was kind of the reason for keeping her out of this.”

“Taking her to Sanctuary isn’t keeping her out of it. This is you getting to have a happy little family side trip.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is unwise.”

“Maybe. It’s still my decision to make.”

“I’m not arguing that, Swe…Val. I’m just saying, if you’re going to take Gee, maybe we should all go together.”

“I appreciate the offer, Charon, but honestly? I think it would go better without you there.” She was trying hard not be blunt about it, and he tried to appreciate that, but it burned.

 _You gave her up_ , he reminded himself. _You have no place here now_. He nodded and fell silent.

She sighed, a long exhale that seemed to weigh her down. “Charon, I’m trying here. Hancock seems to have come to terms with the knowledge, but you know, MacCready made a good point.”

“What.”

“We need to have a contingency plan in place. If something happens to me, Hancock should raise her. I can’t ask you and Hank to do it. It’s unfair. And he’s her father. They’ve barely gotten to know each other, and this is a good time to let that happen.”

“You don’t need to explain it to me.”

“But I feel like I do. I feel like there’s some silent judgment going on behind those baby blues.”

“Val…”

“This isn’t easy for me, Charon, and I know it isn’t easy for you. And I’m sorry for that. But…I need to get on with it. With my life. With _our_ lives.”

“I get it, Val. I do.”

“Okay.”

He left her then, to her own thoughts, her own plans. He tried hard not to feel out of place, he tried not to feel left behind, especially since he had no one to blame but himself. It didn’t want to stick, however, and before he knew it, he was walking right out of the Castle’s walls altogether. He slumped against the fort and stared out across the bay, pondering whether or not he should even have come.


	22. Treasure

Hancock, Val and Genevieve set out from the Castle before the sun had even crested the buildings within the fort. Not that they could see it; it was raining. “Remember,” Val said to her daughter, “if you see raiders, you hide. No kill count for children.”

“I know Mama. But what about bugs and stuff?”

“If we come across bugs that’s different.” Val shared a glance with him and he nodded, silently agreeing. It was one thing for them to take down anything human, but no child should be a killer. Even if she was armed to the teeth with her shotgun – no more pellets, he saw – and a short bladed dagger tucked in a sheath at her small thigh. Just like Val.

“No ferals, either,” he put in. Gee nodded solemnly. The seriousness of her little face just about undid him. She seemed sorrowful at the fact that going feral was a likely outcome for all ghouls and that there was no other choice but to put them down. It didn’t surprise him. He knew she had been raised around ghouls and she felt a connection with them in her own innocent way.

The road into South Boston was clear and quiet, since the Minutemen patrolled there regularly. Even Andrew Station was still quiet from when they passed through a few days before. They headed west, picking up the old train tracks and following them, until his storeroom at the NH&M Freight Depot. They stopped to rest and dry off there and Hancock let Gee run all over the place, poking her nose into crates and boxes.

“Just stay away from the barrels, all right, kiddo? They got rads.”

“Okay,” she chirped and disappeared into the long boxcar that held his treasures. He didn’t worry; there wasn’t anything she could get into serious trouble with. Most people didn’t know that what he actually stored here was information, not tangible goods. Well, Val knew.

“Funny isn’t it?” Val asked, lounging against the stairs that led up to the gantry level where she had once faced Fahrenheit and chosen to stay loyal to him. “Our whole life together began here.”

“I woulda gotten my way with you one way or the other,” he drawled. She smiled back.

“Oh, you think so?”

“I know it, Sunshine.”

“You’re so full of shit. You barely knew my name before that day.”

“Wrong. Valara Thorsgaard was always worth knowing.” He swept the back of his fingers against her hairline and she closed her eyes at the gentle touch. Moments like these were why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. Quiet moments, without tension or threat. The comfortable enjoyment of each other’s presence. “Still, I’m glad you didn’t kill Fahr, if it comes down to it.”

“I’m glad I didn’t either.” She grinned and leaned back on the metal steps. “How is she, anyway? I heard someone say she’s in Covenant?”

“Yeah, after you cleared that place out it was just begging to be taken in hand. We got some settlers there and she took over as Mayor. She’s pretty happy, all things considered.”

“Little Goodneighbor, huh?”

He laughed shortly. “Hardly. She’s ten times the Mayor I have ever been. Covenant is the hottest trading spot in the Commonwealth now. Bunker Hill is small time in comparison. She rules with an iron fist full of caps. Got more wealth than I do.”

“Good for her,” Val approved.

“I’ve always thought so.”

“Mama,” Gee cried, chortling. “There’s blocks in here that spell ‘Hancock’!”

“I know, baby girl,” Val replied, her eyes on him with a grin. He managed to look sheepish as Gee came barreling out of the boxcar to giggle at him.

“You’re so silly,” she said.

“Hey, gotta remember who you are sometimes.”

“Don’t use so many chems then,” she said with all the blithe ridicule a nine year old can muster. He made a face at her, setting her off again and she went back to her exploring.

“Hah,” Val barked. “Boy, does she have you pegged.”

“No need to rub it in,” he retorted good-naturedly. They listened to the little girl exclaim over whatever she found in there, both of them smiling gently. “So, when do you want to tell her?”

“I thought maybe I’d let you do it, on your own time, of course. No pressure or anything.”

“Oh, yeah, no pressure.” He pretended to be worried. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“Why not?” Val said with a shrug. “You’ve earned the right.”

“Do you think she’ll be happy about it?” Val squinted up at him, the brim of her Minutemen hat covering her forehead but not her eyes.

“I think she will. She’s got a thing for ghouls, you know.”

“Must be a family trait.”

“Must be.” She leaned forward a bit, her eyes dancing, lips inviting. He bent down and obliged, kissing her.

“Ugh, grown-ups are weird,” Gee said. Hancock hadn’t heard her approach and it startled him a bit. He broke away but Val slipped her arm around his neck, keeping him close.

“Better get used to it, baby girl,” Val said. “I like this one a lot.”

“Well…that’s all right, then, I guess.” Gee scuffed her foot in the dust on the floor before coming over to them and plopping into her mother’s lap. “I’m hungry.”

“Of course you are. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Val opened her pack and rummaged in it to find something to eat while Hancock watched. A thousand emotions were racing through him – fear of failure, the thrill of knowledge that he’d had a part in creating this perfect little person, love for Val and everything in between. They mixed and combined until he felt like he’d taken Mentats and Jet together. No matter what else happened, he knew without a doubt that he didn’t ever want to let this precious gift go.

Once Gee had eaten they were ready to head back out, following the tracks west until they met in a junction that would lead them north. At least the rain had stopped, although everything was still dripping.

“You think we can make Oberland tonight?” Val asked, with an eye on the cloudy sky and the other on her Pip-Boy.

“Sure. We can make it. I’ll carry Gee if she gets tired.”

“Piggy back rides?” Genevieve cried out, nearly dancing in place.

“If that’s what it takes,” he said to her with a grin. Val just shook her head.

“You’re in for it now,” she said. Gee slipped her hand into her mother’s and swung their arms. She reached out for his too and with only a moment’s hesitation he let her take it. Something indescribable suffused him. He caught Val’s knowing look but didn’t speak.

***

Oberland Station had thrived in the years of Val’s absence. There were guard stations at each corner of the once tiny community, manned by Minutemen in uniforms with laser muskets for show and more powerful miniguns for muscle. Under the railway outpost that was the original standing structure there was a market with tables and chairs. Wrapped around the outpost was the segmented apartment building, which had grown to dwarf the outpost tower. To the east there were small cottages built into the tree line for traders and travelers like themselves.

Gee bounced on his shoulders, her small hands holding his hat in place as he charged up the tracks with her, her shrieks of laughter echoing off the river down the hill. The settlers sure heard them coming and Val went off to meet with them and catch up on a decade of news as he raced with his daughter.

“Again,” she cried, and he took off along the tracks, sure of his footing in the open. He was breathless and tired when she finally slipped down from his shoulders to the ground. “You’re fun, Hancock.”

“I try,” he replied, ruffling her hair without even thinking about it. She pouted but then grinned.

“Uncle Hank does that too,” she said.

“Hey, I got an excuse. I miss hair.” She peered up at him with her wide blue eyes and teasing expression.

“Lotsa ghouls say that.”

“Well it’s true.”

“Do you love my mom?” Gee asked abruptly, with the kind of sharp conversational turn children take. Hancock dropped down to a knee so they were at eye level. He hadn’t planned to tell her this soon, but it seemed like she might have guessed already. He didn’t have much experience with children, but he knew that it was hard to pull one over on them. It was hard to hide things, keep them secret. And this was one he didn’t want to keep.

“Yeah, Gee. I love your mom. I always have.”

“For a long time?”

“Since long before you were born,” he said.

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? Look at her. She’s good and strong and beautiful and smart. Like you.”

She made an impatient face, like that wasn’t why she was asking at all. “If you love her so much, how come I never met you before?”

“Gee, stuff happened a long time ago, and your mom…well, she was mad at me. And she left to go down to DC with Mac and I didn’t see her until she came back. You know, it’s hard to send messages and stuff across that long distance. I made some big mistakes back then, and I wasn’t ever able to say I was sorry for them.”

“The Institute, huh.”

Hancock leaned back a little, getting a good look at Gee’s face. “She told you about that?”

“Yeah. I had a brother once, and he was bad. Like, he was evil. Mama used to cry about it a lot. She had to, ya know, stop him.” Genevieve looked at him, solemn and not as childish as she appeared. “You helped her, didn’t you?”

“At first. Lots of folks helped her take down the Institute.”

“Did she kill him?”

 _She’s nine, John. Pick the words carefully_.

“Gee…” He didn’t know if Val had said this much, and didn’t want to overstep, but at the same time…his little girl was asking and Hancock tried to be an honest man when he could be.

“She never really told me how she did it. I mean, what she did that was so bad that it made her cry. Mama never cried about anything else. Did she kill him?”

“Yeah, kiddo,” he sighed. “She blew up the Institute, and he was inside it when it exploded. She tried to save as many people as she could, but she couldn’t save him.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, she tried, but he didn’t want to be saved. Sometimes…sometimes we gotta let people make their own choices, and we gotta live with the consequences of them too.”

“Hancock?” Her little face was screwed up into a frown as she thought hard about what he was saying and what else he might be hinting. She looked like she really wanted to ask, but was afraid at the same time. She took another breath and he waited for it to come out. “Are you my dad?”

“Yes, Genevieve. I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US. For the rest of the world, carry on, happy Thursday.


	23. Sanctuary

“You lived here before the war, right Mama?” Genevieve asked Val as they settled down for the night in one of the newer guest houses built in her absence. Sturges wasn’t in Sanctuary Hills at the moment, but he was due to return from a scavenging trip in the morning. “Which house was yours?”

“Nate and I bought that blue house around the corner, the one with the orange door. We only lived here about a year before…before the war happened.” She tucked her daughter into a snug sleeping bag on a raised pallet – more efficient to keep than a bed since it could be rolled up and stored. Hancock was already putting down their bags in the next room.

 _Side by side_ , she thought. _The true test of our relationship_. She laughed to herself.

“Why didn’t you stay here afterwards?” Gee wanted to know.

“This wasn’t home anymore, baby girl. And I had so much to do as General of the Minutemen and I spent a lot of time at the Castle. And then I joined the Brotherhood for a while and I had quarters on the Prydwen.” She shook her head, remembering. “Honestly, I was happiest in Goodneighbor. I bought a house there too.”

“You still have that one?”

“I do,” Val nodded. “I used to stay there when I wasn’t at the Castle or doing missions for…for the Brotherhood. It was something that was just mine.”

“Will we go there sometime?”

“Probably.” Val had finished tucking Gee in and handed her the ratty old teddy bear she insisted on sleeping with.

“Mama, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, baby, go ahead.”

“Should I call Hancock ‘dad’?”

Val thought for a moment. She’d been waiting all day for this question. She knew the pair had gone off together last night as she caught up with the news in Oberland Station. And she could tell from both their faces what they’d talked about. Hancock hadn’t wanted to discuss it when they were surrounded by strangers, and she didn’t blame him for that. Gee had been quiet and thoughtful.

Then, as they hiked up the railroad tracks past Greygarden, eventually leaving the tracks behind at Drumlin Diner and cutting across the open land towards Concord and Sanctuary Hills, she could hear them talking about things. Gee asked incessant questions, not all of which Hancock could answer. She offered to ‘rescue’ him from Gee’s prattling, but he brushed off her concerns every time. When Gee got tired, he hitched her into the crook of his elbow, her little hand resting on his shoulder as if they’d done it a million times. Val’s heart squeezed hard and when it released she felt something fall into place, like some fractured part of her had become whole.

She focused back on her daughter’s question now and tipped her head to the side, peering down at the little girl. “I think you should ask him that. Not right now, though,” she cautioned, pushing Gee back down when she would have gotten up that minute. “In the morning.”

“All right.” Val bent down and kissed Gee’s forehead, stroking back her curls. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, baby girl. Get some sleep. We’ll be right in the room next door.”

“Okay,” Gee said on a yawn. The road had been long, although not as long as the trip from DC, and she was worn out with all the excitement of what she had learned. Val left a lantern burning low on a table and left her daughter to her dreams.

“She all right?” Hancock asked when she entered their tiny room, filled to the brim with their bags and packs.

“I think so. She’s a bit caught up in the romance of it all still.”

“I heard her,” he said with a grin.

“What do you think about that?”

“I…” he shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s…a bit soon, don’t ya think?”

“It’s up to you. Whether or not she calls you ‘dad’ won’t change that you are.” She bit her lip, afraid that might have sounded too forceful. “I mean…”

“Hey,” he said, stopping her suddenly anxious flailing hands with his. “If she’s ready, then I’m ready. I’m sure there will be times when I’m overwhelmed, and her too, but you said you wanted us to be a family. I’ve never wanted anything else.” He leaned close and their lips met for a time, soft and gentle. “C’mon, you need sleep.”

“You have a look in your eye, Mister Mayor.”

“Yeah, I probably do. Not much I can do about it with our child in the next room.” He sounded rueful, but gleeful too, as if the act of saying ‘ours’ was something more precious than all the wealth in the world. “Guess I’ll have to settle for curling up with you instead.”

“I think I can handle that,” she teased. She stripped down to her underwear and slid into the bags he’d zipped together to make one large one. His heat comforted her and she backed into his arms so naturally she wondered how she could have forgotten it.

“I don’t know how to be a dad,” he whispered in her ear. She thought he’d gone to sleep already, and was hovering on the edge of it herself when he’d spoken.

“You’re doing all right at it, Hancock.”

“I’ve had some time to think about this, ya know,” he went on. “It’s _all_ I’ve thought about since you told me in Goodneighbor. You know I ain’t exactly the introspective type, but this…it’s so big, Val.”

“I know.”

“It’s not like you need me.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want you,” she said. She turned over in his arms so she was facing him. His eyes were bleak with worry, and there were lines on his forehead from frowning. “Hey, if it’s too much, tell me. I won’t be angry. I know it’s a lot to ask. I know it’s life changing.”

“It ain’t that. I want it, Val, like I’ve never wanted anything. It’s just…what if I fuck it up?”

She cupped his cheek in her palm and he leaned into her touch like a starving man at a banquet. “John, every parent asks that question. Every parent lives with that fear every day. And it was still true before this was a wasteland full of things that wanted to kill you.” She smiled and kissed the end of his half nose. “That worry is _exactly_ what it means to be a dad.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, I love you, you know that right?”

“Yeah…”

“If you fuck up, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Now go to sleep.”

“All right.” He tightened his grip on her and she snuggled in under his chin, smiling to herself.

 _He’s going to be just fine_ , she thought.

***

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sturges said as soon as he sauntered into the settlement. They had been waiting for him as soon as he and his band of scavvers had been spotted by the guards. “General?”

“Hey, there, Sturges,” Val managed before being swept into a hug fit to break her ribs. “Oomph,” she grunted. “Put me down, you old bear.”

“Sorry, boss, it’s just…damn…it’s been too long, Valara.”

“I know.”

“Hancock,” Sturges held out his hand and shook the ghoul’s without hesitation. “Good to see you’re still kickin’ too. And who’s this?”

“I’m Genevieve,” Gee said looking up at the muscular man with the sideburns and elaborately styled hair. “Mama told me about you. You can fix anything.”

He chuckled. “Jus’ about. Nice to meet ya, Genevieve.” He cocked an eye at Val. “Yours?”

“Indeed.”

“Well, how ‘bout that?”

Val looked her old friend over and was surprised to notice something she’d never thought of before.  “Sturges, you haven’t aged a day."

He looked sheepish.  “Nah, I haven’t.  Know what that means?”

“I do,” she said, putting a hand on his arm.  He was warm and solid as ever, and would forever be.  “How long have you known?”

“A few years.  I got no memory of before, so I don’t know how long I’ve been out here.  It just…wasn’t that important to find out.”

“Wait,” Hancock interjected.  “You’re saying Sturges is a synth?”

“Sure am, boss,” he replied.

“Well…damn.”  There seemed to be nothing else to say about it.

“Sturges, I have a question for you,” Val said, getting down to business before they got too sidetracked.

“Shoot.”

“You still remember how to fly a vertibird?”

“What are you up to, Valara?” Sturges asked, eyeing her now with seriousness.

“The Enclave is back in business. They’ve been kidnapping ghouls from here to the Capital Wasteland. We need to take them out.”

“And why do you need a vertibird for this?”

“We think they’re in the New York City ruins. It’s vast, Sturges, bigger than we’d ever be able to manage on foot. From the air, our odds of finding them are much better.”

“Well…it’s been a long time since I flew, but I’m pretty sure I remember how. Give me a couple days to get everything settled, all right?”

“Sounds good.” Val nodded to the old workshop where her power armor stood like a shrine to the past. “I’m gonna need to get that in working order again anyway.”

“Damn, boss. You ain’t messin’ around, are ya?”

“Nope. One way or another, we need to end this.”

“And then what? Where’d you go off to anyway?”

“I’ve been in DC the last ten years. Made some new friends you’ll get to meet when we get to the Castle.”

“I’ll look forward to it, then.”


	24. Replicated

Hank and Charon were at the firing range when the sound of clanking was heard on the road into South Boston. The sun was slanting low between the buildings, shining off the suit of power armor with Val’s head sticking out the top of it. On one side of her was Hancock, Gee in his arms, which was strange enough all by itself…and on the other…

On the other was a well-built man with slicked back hair and worn coveralls cinched tight with a work belt sporting all sorts of tools. He laughed easily with Val and Hancock and walked with the kind of confidence one rarely saw in wastelanders.

 _Must be Sturges_ , he thought to himself. _The pilot_.

Except he didn’t look much like a pilot. He reminded Hank a little bit of Walter, the all-around handyman of Megaton, although this man didn’t look to be nearly as surly. And was far more attractive. Hank lowered his rifle and waited for the group to approach, and he could tell they’d been spotted when Preston came up to his side to wait too.

“Glad to see you made it back in one piece, General,” Preston said as soon as they were close enough.

“Thank you, General.” She grinned slyly. Hank got the feeling Preston had never truly felt himself to be the General of the Minutemen and was always going to forget that Val was retired. “Sturges, this is Hank Neeson, the Lone Wanderer of Vault 101, and Charon, also from DC,” Val went on, introducing them all around.

“Nice to meet’ya,” he replied, his voice an interesting mix of almost Southern and rough working man.

“You remember where everything is? Preston hasn’t changed much around here.”

“Yeah, I’ll get settled in, then I wanna take a look at that ‘bird. See what we got to work with.”

“All right. You need a hand with that?” Val asked.

“Nah, I think I got it.”

“Stop in and see Curie too, Sturges,” she continued. “I’m sure she’d love to catch up.”

Hank watched the burly mechanic move off into the green of the courtyard, appreciating the nice view from behind. He whistled low under his breath, which caught Val’s attention.

“What are you thinking, Hunk-o-Hank?”

“That’s the pilot?” he asked.

“Sturges is handy with all sorts of things.” There was a distinctively lascivious undertone in her words that he didn’t miss.

“I’ll bet he is.”

She appraised him with a gleaming eye. “Don’t go distracting my pilot, Henry Neeson. I need him.”

Hank looked at her with a raised brow. “Do you think he would be willing to be distracted?”

“Perhaps. Heaven only knows what he’d see in you,” she teased.

“Thanks for the endorsement.”

“Hey, I’ve met you, remember?” He draped an arm over her shoulder with a companionable laugh.

“Yeah, I guess you have. Just as I have met you. C’mon, kick off the dust and tell me all about your trip north.”

***

Hank saw boots sticking out from under the vertibird and heard muffled cursing and decided to check it out. “Need a hand?” he asked, squatting down so he could see the mechanic buried up to his elbows in the engine.

“I can always use an extra,” Sturges replied, swiping his forearm across his face, presumably to clear the sweat from it, but he only managed to smear oil across his nose. “It was Hank, right? Hand me that combo wrench.”

Hank found the one and handed it over. “What are you doing anyway?”

“Cleanin’ this old ‘bird out. Brotherhood…they got some crazy notions about what makes engines tick.”

“Yeah, well, they’ve kept that airship going all right.”

“Pfft, that ain’t nothin’. Just gas and coolant. Not like these beauts. They need precision tuning and care.” There was a clanking sound and another muffled curse, then the sound of ratcheting as Sturges tightened bolts. “Ain’t no mystery to me why they never fly these things straight.”

“Sure, they get all sorts of gunked up sitting around in the airport or hanging off the Prydwen like twigs.”

Sturges paused and looked over at Hank for a moment before nodding. “They should be kept in a hangar. They got no excuse, s’not like anything else is in that old airport.”

“I thought Val built some barracks there or something.”

“That don’t take up that much space,” the mechanic grumbled back before returning to his work. “Pitiful. I’m half surprised this ‘bird made it here.”

Hank dropped down on his hands and knees to peer under the fuselage of the vertibird. He could see what Sturges was talking about when he got a good look at it. “Damn. That’s a lot of corrosion.”

“You ain’t kiddin’.” He sighed. “Gonna take a lotta elbow grease to get all this off.” He banged his arm against the underside and swore. “And I’m losin’ my light. Damn it all to hell.”

“Want me to get a light? I can hold it steady.”

“That would be great. ‘Preciate it.”

Hank found a construction light and laid himself sideways on the ground so he could still see underneath while holding it steady. “How long have you worked with engines?”

“As long as I can remember, which…well…that ain’t sayin’ much I guess.” Sturges shot Hank a look that he couldn’t interpret immediately. “Val didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m a synth. Don’t know how long I been out here topside. I got memories, ya know, of bein’ young, of havin’ parents. Man, I used to quote my daddy all the time. Now…I gotta wonder, was I programmed to be this way? Was I ever a person?”

“Val seems to think you are. That’s good enough in my book.”

“Well, thank ya. You’re from DC, right? You get many of us down there?”

“There’s been some.” He thought back to his early days in the ruined world, back when Project Purity was still his father’s dream and not a reality. “I helped a synth escape, once. His name is Harkness. He was a guard at Rivet City, and didn’t know. He’d been…what do you call it? Wiped?”

“Yeah. The Railroad used to do that sort of thing for escapees. Wipe out all trace of the Institute and implant new memories of happier lives, or at least, of lives with meaning. There’s a lot of us that don’t even know what we are. Like me. I didn’t know for sure until I realized I wasn’t aging. All around me friends were gettin’ older and I was the same. The wasteland ain’t an easy place to live, and people age a lot faster, so it was noticeable.” He shook his head in reminiscence. “There was only one logical conclusion.”

“The Railroad didn’t have a big presence in DC, although, I suppose that makes sense. I assume there are more synths out there than we know about, but I only ever met Harkness.”

“Was someone lookin’ for him?”

“Zimmer,” Hank confirmed. “Val said he was the head of the SRB. I ended up giving him a piece that couldn’t have been replicated, so he believed me when I said the synth he was looking for was dead.”

“Synth component,” Struges said with a nod. “All the Gen-3’s have’em. Means I got one too. It’s the part that makes us different from you humans. Where all the programming goes.”

“That’s…that’s got to be difficult to live with.”

“Not so much anymore, not with the Institute gone and all. Just wish I coulda gotten some answers before she blew it all to hell. ‘Course, I didn’t know back then. Not yet.”

“And now there’s no way to get answers, huh?” Hank asked softly. “No one survived?”

“Nah. I don’t mind though, not like I can change any of it. The Commonwealth is better off without the Institute, and my lack of personal knowledge is just part of the price paid for it.” He shrugged his shoulders in the dirt, making a small scraping sound. “Maybe it’s better that way. I know there’s some who were programmed to turn on folks. As far as survivors…I don’t know how many made it out. I know Val hit the evacuation code, so they shoulda run. Can’t say we’ve had a problem since, but that don’t mean we won’t someday.”

There was another clank and Sturges got a face full of used oil as it leaked out of whatever he’d loosened. “Aw, hellfire.” He wiped his eyes, clearing them. “Well, guess I’m gonna need to replace that.”

“What was it?” Hank struggled not to laugh and failed.

“Oil cap. Pretty sure there’s some around here. Val always did like to scav the wastelands like a hound on a scent.”

“She’s done a lot with this place. If the Commonwealth was anything like DC…she’s basically built it up from scratch.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Struges agreed as he hauled his bulk up out from under the vertibird. “I’m not gonna get anything more done tonight, I don’t reckon. Listen, lemme get cleaned up and I’ll buy ya a beer for helpin’. You can tell me more of your stories about her. Sound good?”

“Yeah…sounds…great.” Hank tried to ignore the sudden fluttering in his stomach, and hoped it didn’t show…too much. Sturges didn’t seem to notice anything, just happy enough to have some company.

“Well, all right. Meet ya at the bar in about 15?”

“Okay.”

Hank switched off the construction light and stood up, dusting off his rear end from where it had gotten coated in fine dust and gravel. As he turned towards the bar, he saw Val watching him, her eyes hooded under a Minuteman hat, but her lips quirked in a sardonic grin. He waved and pretended he didn’t know what was going on in her head.


	25. Good

_Dust, Jet, leather and linen_. Val opened her eyes in the dimness of the room, but she knew right where she was. They’d come back to Goodneighbor after a long, steady hike from the Castle, just her and Hancock. They were going to meet up with Nick, and get this ragtag band of misfits on the road to saving the world…again.

It had been late enough when they arrived that all she did was strip down to underwear and thin tee shirt and drop into Hancock’s bed, barely even registering when he climbed in beside her. Now, however, now she was all too aware of being in bed with him. Of not being in a rush or in danger of being interrupted by the patter of small feet, or the sounds of commerce picking up around them. Now she was aware of his heat against her back, of his rapidly hardening length tucked snugly in the gap between her legs and her butt. Because of course John Hancock would never sleep in his clothes in his own home.

She moved her hips, just to test how awake he was, and was rewarded with a breathy laugh on the back of her neck.

“Mornin’ Sunshine.”

“Good morning,” she replied. His hand settled on her waist, on her skin since her tee had ridden up high during the night. A roughened palm flowed over her skin with a rasp and she shivered. Fingertips ran over her ribs and she giggled.

“Still ticklish?” Hancock murmured in her ear, a growling purr that had never once failed to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Even in their worst days, they’d still had this. Fire and passion and fury, he’d said not too long ago. He wasn’t wrong. Once upon a time that fire had consumed her whole, and it had frightened her. There was a time when his accusation of her being more interested in finding Shaun outweighing her love for him had not been accurate at all, and it had only served to fuel the guilt she’d felt, so she lashed out instead of setting him straight on her priorities. Especially since once she found Shaun, and discovered what kind of monster he’d been shaped into, there had been no way to take back the angry words, to tell him he was all she had left worth fighting for.

But that time had passed, as the guilt had shrunken to a tiny dot on the radar of her memory. She’d had too many years to think about all the ways they went wrong, all the ways they had been horrible for each other – and to each other. She hoped there were enough tatters left of what they’d once had to mend it properly. Because she wanted to. She wanted desperately for them to be a family the way they always should have been.

“What are you thinking about so hard you’re ignorin’ me?” Hancock whispered against her skin.

“I’m thinking about how much I want to get it right this time.”

“I ain’t worried about it, Val.” He nipped her shoulder right through her tee and she wriggled against him, making him laugh and let go. “You walked a long road without me, and it changed you. But nothing could change how much I love you.”

“I love you so much it scares me,” she confessed, finally, after all the years and miles.

“It’s all right, I ain’t gonna make you run this time.” He was propped up on his arm and she turned her head enough that she could see his face. He pressed tiny kisses along the length of her scar, sweeping over her temple, her cheek, her jaw. “I know what I got, and I don’t want it to go wrong, either.”

“Oh, John…” she sighed.

“I got you,” he whispered in her ear. “What else do I need?”

It was enough. This time, it was enough.

He slid his hand under her tee, dragging it up over her shoulders and over her head, baring her skin to his gaze and his mouth. He stroked down her spine, making her shiver, until he could slip under the elastic of her underwear, cupping her from behind. With a shift of her hips she helped him push the underwear off, down her legs to be lost somewhere under the covers. His fingers traced patterns on her skin, delicate circles and swirls on her thigh and her hipbone that made her nerves tingle and her insides ignite. This wasn’t the raging bonfire she knew from him; this was a slow build, a sustaining warmth that could last forever.

His wandering fingers finally slipped between her legs, skimming lightly between her folds just as he closed his teeth on the side of her neck. She hissed, arched her back and managed to drive his fingers into her heat. She groaned. He chuckled.

“You’re such a mess,” he said.

“Shut up,” she retorted, and his amusement continued.

“When was the last time I had you all to myself, with no time limit, with you all wet and wanting?” he murmured, almost rhetorically. “And don’t bring up Nick. He can wait.”

She didn’t say anything, just arched into his clever fingers as they found every spot he knew she liked to be touched. It was his turn to groan as she coated his fingers with her slipperiness.

“You’re all mine,” he growled.

“Yes…”

He bent two fingers inside her, almost pulling her back into him to escape the pressure. It didn’t hurt, but the stretch was in a direction she wasn’t used to. When he was satisfied that she was elastic enough, he removed his fingers and replaced them with the blunt head of his cock, his breath warming her ear, one leg pushing hers upwards to spread her open. With a push and a groan he sank into her from behind and she felt so full of him she could barely breathe.

He thrust into her slowly and steadily, reaching his hand around to her front to circle and abrade her clit, sending splinters of pleasure throughout her body. She backed into him to meet every stroke, her breath coming faster, little sounds leaking from her lips. She had an ache in the hip she was laying on and a cramp starting in her lower thigh, but she didn’t want him to stop. Still, he must have guessed she was getting uncomfortable, because he withdrew completely all of a sudden and with a wolfish grin flung her onto her back.

“I haven’t kissed you properly yet,” he said, swooping in to capture her mouth with his. She kissed him back with a fierce sort of joy, her hands instantly on his back, holding him closer. She didn’t know how long they spent that way, mouths locked together, tongues dancing, bodies touching, but when he finally pulled away she took a deep breath as if she hadn’t been able to get enough air before.

“John…?”

“What, Sunshine?”

“I like this.”

“Me too.”

The sun was slanting into the room now from the far windows, lighting up half the room and leaving them still in the gloom of the shadows. He was backlit against the rays as he rose over her, settling between her legs but not _in_ her. Not yet. He had a gleam in his eye that she hadn’t known how much she’d missed. Without much warning he dropped down between her legs and gave her a long lick up her center, making her arch right off the mattress to the tune of his laughter. She would have scolded him for it, but then his tongue found her clit and pressed against it and she couldn’t find the words. The pressure building now was of a different kind, internal and irrepressible and so, so hot it burned up her spine into her scalp.

“John…” she gasped.

“Come for me,” he said against her flesh and she shuddered. He buried two fingers inside her to the knuckle, his tongue never stopping against her clit, his breath flowing over like a wave. Again and again he stroked her with tongue, teeth and fingers and she cried out as she fell over the edge of her orgasm. Before she could even ride out the cataclysm going on in her body, he’d fitted himself to her opening and pushed into her to the hilt.

Her legs clamped around him, ankles crossed. She expected him to go faster now, to pound at her like the tide against rock, but he didn’t. He pressed deep, so deep she could feel him bottom out and just stayed there, rocking gently, gaining tiny increments with each movement. The aftershocks of her orgasm stuttered and before she knew it she was coming again, blindingly, brilliantly. Only then did he pull back and thrust hard with a groan.

He sat up with her wrapped around him like a snake, gazing down at her with such love in his eyes it made her own prick with tears. He ran his hands over her body with reverence and gentleness. When he leaned back over her she thought he would kiss her again, but he didn’t, just moved his mouth over her collarbones and throat, leaving a wet trail down her slope of her shredded breast, folding himself nearly in half.

“Harder, John, please…”

“I could never resist a woman begging,” he grinned and took her with all the ferocity she knew and loved. His hips slammed into hers, hands holding her legs wide. She braced against the headboard as she started to slide across the mattress. She felt a shift in his tempo and knew he was getting close. She lifted her body into each hard thrust, clenching on him like a vise. And it was enough to shatter him. She felt each pulse and spasm as he came so deep inside her it burned against her womb. He shouted as he came, harsh and sharp and halfway to pained before he collapsed onto her chest. He stayed inside her as he softened, his breath coming in pants.

She smiled to herself and stroked the back of his head. She was a sweaty mess but he was not. At least, not on the surface. He was flushed with heat, it poured off him like a blast furnace.

“I love you, ghoul,” she said. She felt a sudden giddiness in her soul that had been so long lacking she hadn’t known it was gone.

He breathed out a long sigh of contentment and wrapped his arms around her, holding her so close she could feel his heartbeat against her stomach. “I love you, human.”

***

Nick’s eyes swept over the pair of them outside the State House, and if Val had wanted, she could have blushed. Trust the detective to notice the change in the air between them immediately. But he didn’t say anything, only held her eyes with a knowing half smile and shook his head in that infuriating way he had.

She felt transported suddenly, back in time to twelve years ago when everything had been new and strange and unknown and she had defiantly withstood the bombardment of how much her world had changed. It had been a horrible adjustment, made easier by these two men in her life. She would never forget that.

“Ellie’s all right with you coming with us?” she asked as they passed stealthily through South Boston back towards the Castle.

“She’s not happy about it, but she’s all right,” Nick replied. “I still ramble about on my cases, she knows that.”

“Heh, this is a little different than your usual case, Nick,” Hancock said.

“Yeah…well, it needs to be done.” Val twined her fingers with Nick’s with her right hand, her left firmly clasped in Hancock’s.

“C’mon, my two favorite boys in the ‘Wealth. Let’s go save the world.”

“Again,” they both chorused.

The laughter of the three of them could be heard all over the empty streets, but they didn’t care. Nick, Hancock and Val were on the move. Not much could afford to get in their way.


	26. Learning

_It all looks different on the ground_ , Rhys thought. A decade ago he’d been at the Cambridge Police Station, waiting to die an inevitable, horrible death, until that Vault dweller had come out of nowhere, shaken up the world and reordered it after her own fashion. He’d never liked her, and even as he knew that he knew it was unfair of him. But honestly, she came out the ruins like a remnant of the distant past, out of literally a hole in the ground, and Danse had immediately made her his equal. It rankled. And then she was flippant to the point of insubordinate about it. It had set the tone of their entire relationship.

Rhys had lived and breathed the Brotherhood his whole life. He’d worked hard to gain what rank he had, from squire to initiate to knight to paladin. And she came along, an upstart stranger going by leaps and bounds. For her work in blowing up the Institute, Elder Maxson made her a Sentinel, the highest rank in the Brotherhood next to his own. And still she spurned it.

But he had to admit, she got things done. She didn’t play by the rules much, but she got things done. The Institute would likely still be terrorizing the Commonwealth today without her interference. And Danse would still be alive.

That one still burned in his secret heart. Because not only would the Institute still exist, but so would his leader, his friend. It was a terrible irony, and he’d lived with the weight of it for more than ten years.

He’d never set foot in her home before this. Never left either the Prydwen or the police station to see where she lived her life when she wasn’t with the Brotherhood. It was…happy. There were children running between the green growing rows of tatoes and razorgrain, among the budding corn and mutfruit trees. There were shops and tables for leisure in the shade, there was music. There was a medic and a barber and a surgeon. Her people lived in each other’s pockets much the way his own did on the Prydwen, but with the very notable difference that here the air was clean and fresh, and the outside world beckoned.

He climbed the stairs to the wall and looked over the bay towards the airport, where he could see the giant airship hanging motionless in the sky, tethered to the radio tower that had once directed even larger airborne vehicles, if she was to be believed. He still felt a fierce joy at seeing the Prydwen there, but it was tempered now with a sort of tired sadness. He would likely never go home again, never see the Citadel, never see his parents or his childhood friends.

Elder Maxson wanted to maintain the strict ethical code among the Brotherhood of not mingling with the subhuman locals, but here, in the Castle, he saw ghoulish faces everywhere. He saw synths working side by side with humans. He saw what kind of future awaited mankind and it was not what he had been taught to believe was right and proper. But they were all so happy. Content to live their days in honest toil and relax by night in safety.

For the first time, he thought maybe he understood why Haylen had left. It hadn’t been long after the fiasco with Danse. The Institute was gone, and Valara Thorsgaard had fulfilled her promise to Elder Maxson to return and deal with the problem of a synth among their ranks. And after Danse’s summary execution – which none of them saw, but who would doubt the word of the Elder? – Haylen decided she’d had enough. She’d withdrawn and retired, leaving her holotags behind. He’d forgotten that her hair was blond, he’d gotten so used to seeing her in a scribe’s uniform. He hadn’t seen her again once she left. He’d gone on with life, working hard, gaining the rank of Paladin and his own suit of custom power armor. He was proud of what he’d achieved.

And now the wayward Sentinel was back, and a new misery was threatening the Commonwealth. No, not just the Commonwealth. She’d been in the Capital Wasteland, the home of his birth. Whatever the Enclave was doing, and he remembered well the tales told of the Enclave when he was little more than a squire, it had extended as far south as DC.

But why ghouls? Of all the creatures born into the irradiated excuse of an earth, why them? He no longer had hatred for them. He pitied them. He kept clear of them, as if they were contagious. As if he was afraid of them. And he supposed, in some respects, he was. There was no telling when a ghoul would turn feral, no way to know when cognition would stop and instinct take over. In his head he knew that was partly because of his training and upbringing, that the chances of sudden deterioration were not medically sound and therefore probably not how things happened. He found himself struggling against his ingrained prejudice the longer he spent at the Castle. He found himself understanding that they were just people, just like anyone else. They just had the misfortune of living through hell itself and were rewarded with bigotry and racism. He was ashamed, and he was angry about that too.

He watched Valara cross the open space of the Castle, that red coated ghoul at her side, and between them, the child that she’d conveniently left out of any report for ten years. He knew he should report her to Maxson, but at the same time, he felt he owed her something. Some small recompense for a decade’s worth of misplaced aggravation at her very existence. She hadn’t asked to be part of this world. This wasn’t her time. If she was capable and ruthless and able to destroy a monster others had only cowered from, who was he to sneer and judge? No, he didn’t much like her, but he could respect her. He could respect her wishes when it came to her child.

He followed the line of the wall until he could see where the mismatched trio had gone. The shooting range. They took turns, the three of them. Each target hit was praised, each miss was laughed at. Together. And it dawned on him.

They were a family. Valara, the child and the ghoul.

“She’s quite something, isn’t she?” a voice appeared at his side. Rhys turned to see Preston Garvey standing there, watching the trio too.

“Is that ghoul…is he her…lover?” Preston smiled crookedly and tipped his head to the side as if he didn’t quite believe the naivety he was hearing. Rhys frowned, but supposed he probably deserved it. The Brotherhood of Steel touted its superiority far and wide, but the Commonwealth didn’t seem too impressed. Never had. There was a distinct possibility that they were not wrong about his faction’s worth, or lack thereof.

“That ghoul is Mayor Hancock of Goodneighbor, Paladin. A powerful man with the backing of caps, trade and his own wits. And yes, he is Val’s partner. Or at least he was at one point. They’ve been apart a long time.”

“You mean when she was in the Capital Wasteland.”

“Yes.”

“I’m trying to overcome my…distaste, but I have to ask…what does she see in him?”

Preston eyed him carefully, his placid face showing the years etched in fine wrinkles and a few scars. “You would have to ask her that, Paladin. But not all of us agree that ghoulism is equal to abomination.”

“I know.” Rhys spread his hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m not trying to start a fight about it. I just want to understand.”

“They’re just people, Rhys. Just people like you and me. The world isn’t very kind to them, and they’ll outlive us all in the end. It’s hard for them to find real happiness.” The Minuteman General dropped the stock of his laser musket to his feet and watched as Hancock helped Genevieve line up her next shot. “I’ve known Val since the day she left the Vault. From the very start she had tolerance on her side, tolerance that I’ve never seen before. She never heard the stories of how they go feral and she never had any ingrained fear or hatred of them. I think in some ways she understood them better for being wrongly persecuted. She lived in a time when every single person of Chinese descent was feared and loathed as the enemy, even though they were just people too.”

“The Chinese?”

“Lord, boy, what do they teach you up in that gasbag?” Preston asked incredulously. “The Chinese, the ones from the Great War that ended the world.”

“I guess…I guess I’d never thought of it that way.”

“Why would you? You Brotherhood types always think you’re the best there is. No man is any better than the next simply by existing. Men are only better than others based on their actions.” He frowned, exasperation clear on his face. “Your Elder has never learned that.”

“No,” Rhys said slowly, as if unwilling to contradict his training that the Elder always knows best. “He’s never had much experience on the ground, among regular people.”

“Don’t I know it?” Preston smirked. “Well, you’re getting some hands on experience on the ground, Paladin. I hope _you’re_ learning from it.”

“I’m trying,” Rhys replied.

“That’s all any of us can do.”

A cheer went up from the target ground and Rhys looked down to see Val giving the ghoul a kiss while the child jumped up and down with joy. The sight didn’t even make his stomach turn the way he thought it should. They were just a family, enjoying some free time and each other. If he felt anything at all at the sight, it was envy.


	27. Ruins

“So a Paladin, a synth and a ghoul get into a vertibird…” Val said, watching Rhys attempt to stand as far from Nick and Hancock as he could while still remaining on board the open sided vehicle. Charon, Hank and she were jostling for space too while Sturges calmly went over his flight plan for the hundredth time. With herself, Rhys and Hank in power armor, it was crowded to say the least.

“We about ready, boss?” Sturges threw over his shoulder, his hands on the controls.

“I think we’re as ready as we’re going to get,” she replied wryly. “Now, just out to the harbor and back, right?”

“Right. See what kind of stress we put on the old ‘bird with all this power armor in here.”

“The Brotherhood routinely uses teams of six on a vertibird,” Rhys volunteered a bit defensively.

“But how many of them are in power armor?” she asked him.

“Well…”

“That’s what I thought. And that’s why we’re doing this test run.”

“All right, everyone, grab onto somethin’,” Sturges said with a nod. The vertibird’s rotors started up and the ungainly thing rose into the air. Hancock grinned fiercely as the wind whipped past his face, while Nick just looked stoic. Hank and Charon both appeared to be calm and collected, as if riding in a vertibird wasn’t anything special. And it was just a test run after all. Val smirked to herself behind her power armor helmet. They were quite the mismatched group.

Sturges flew them over the open water of the harbor and the vertibird didn’t seem to be particularly labored or uneven under his expert touch. He swung them around into the wind and it got a bit choppy, but nothing he couldn’t control. They landed back on the road to South Boston without trouble. “Give me a few to run some numbers,” the mechanic said. “Then we’ll be in business.”

“Or not,” Nick commented drily, jumping down from the ‘bird to solid ground again.

“Don’t be pessimistic,” Val chided. “Successful run, I think.”

“Yeah,” Sturges said, looking over the dials and readouts in front of him. “Let me get underneath and make sure all those new seals are holding. With any luck, we’ll be in the air for real tomorrow.”

“Good enough for me.”

***

The New York City skyline had once been the most recognizable in the US. Now it was the same mass of ruins and empty skyscrapers as everywhere else. From above it didn’t look too bad, but Val knew better than to trust the view from the air. There was no telling what hid in the shadows and alleys below. She saw that she was right about Manhattan; most of it lay under water, although it didn’t look too deep. Figures, half seen and shambling, moved in the water, moved between the buildings where there were glimpses of the streets.

“Ferals,” Hank commented over her shoulder, watching with her. Both of them had stashed their helmets into their packs as they rode across the broken landscape between Boston and New York. Even Rhys held his loosely in his hands.

“Doesn’t look like much else though,” she replied.

“Mirelurks probably. They like water.”

“Yeah. But I don’t see any evidence of super mutants from up here.”

“I don’t see raider totems either, but that has no bearing on whether or not they’re there.”

“I know.”

They flew on, circling low over the tops of buildings, trying to see anything that might be a clue to the location of the Enclave. But there was nothing to be seen. Wherever they were hiding, they were hiding well. The sun was slanting behind them in the late afternoon before Val decided to call an end to it.

“Put down in that square, Sturges. It’s big enough that we can make a pretty good encampment around it.”

“You got it, boss.” The vertibird lowered itself gracefully to the ground and shut off with a winding roar that dwindled until silence reigned. By unspoken agreement, Hancock and Charon jumped down first, testing the levels of rads. They walked around a wide circumference, both armed, both careful trackers. Val reflected on that as she watched them. The two men she’d loved best in the world, and they were so similar it was painful.

“It’s clear,” Charon’s gravelly voice reached them after a few minutes. Val exchanged a look with Hank and they followed their friend, leaving the others to jump down on the other side.

“We’re awfully exposed here, Sunshine,” Hancock said as he came up to her side.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s not like we can really hide a Brotherhood vertibird.”

“Not from the air, but maybe from the ground we can.”

“You think there are patrols?”

“Of some kind or another, yeah.”

They organized themselves and built up a natural looking barrier of scrap and dead wood, blocking the view of the park from all sides and made camp. Hank and Charon set up a fire and took some of their rations out to make a sort of stew while Sturges locked the vertibird down for the night. She and Hancock did a perimeter check and Rhys stood by and mostly looked grumpily at Nick, who was idly tightening the screws in his hand again. Preston had given her a quick impression that he’d changed over the years, but so far she hadn’t seen it.

“Hey, Paladin,” she called out softly, drawing his attention.

“Can I do something for you, Sentinel?”

“Maxson said he wanted reports, right? You think you can get through to the Prydwen on the radio, let him know at least we made it this far?”

“I can try,” he said with a frown. She nodded him off and caught the smirk just leaving Hancock’s mouth as she turned back to him.

“Leave him alone, Hancock.”

“Aw, you take all the fun outta life, Sunshine,” he teased. She slid an arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Guess you’ll have to make your own fun, huh?” she whispered.

“You gotta do that now, when we’re camped out with all these boy scouts? You’re a tease.”

She grinned at him and kissed his jawline. “But you love me.”

“Yeah, and you’re damned lucky for it too.” With a swat to her backside he strode off, chatting with Hank at the fire.

She went over to Nick. “What are you thinking?”

“I think tomorrow we should do some scouting on the ground, get a feel for the lay of the land.”

“I agree.” They wandered to the edge of their makeshift barrier and looked down a wide avenue completely devoid of any signs of life. “It’s strange to be here, in this time, with everything so…ruined.”

“I know.”

“Did the human Nick ever come here?”

“Once. The memories are a bit faded. And of course, nothing looks the same anymore.”

“No, it doesn’t. Nate and I came here once too. There was a veteran’s gala in Manhattan. I remember being so sick. We’d just found out about Shaun…” Val’s voice trailed off into silence, and Nick put a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know if I ever told you how sorry I was for your loss, Val. It was a difficult choice and I know it was a painful one.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“I have some more appreciation for your struggle now, I guess. I don’t know how I’d choose…if something happened to Ellie and the boys…”

“Welcome to family life,” Val said with a sad smile.

“Yeah. You given any thought to what happens after all this is over? You gonna stay?”

“Probably. I can’t ask Hancock to leave with me and it’s not like I have much to go back to in DC anyway. My life is here. All my friends are here.” She looked around the small camp, saw Hank sitting side by side with Sturges, deep in conversation, saw Charon and Hancock cleaning their guns by the light of the fire, saw Rhys seeming to fight with himself about whether or not he wanted to join them. She turned back to Nick and saw him watching her, his glowing yellow eyes lighting shadows on his face as evening settled around them. “I mean to do better this time,” she said.

Nick’s mouth curved upwards, the same old half smile he’d always given her when he was proud of her. It still warmed her heart to see it. “You’ve managed to do everything you’ve ever set out to do, Valara. I see no reason to think this time will be any different.”

“Thanks, Nick.”

“No problem, doll. Now, unless I’m mistaken, you should get some rest. Charon and I can take watch tonight.”

“All right. Don’t let Hancock weasel his way out of it either when Charon gets tired.”

Nick chuckled. “I won’t, as long as you keep your mitts off him long enough for him to do his part.”

Val probably blushed, and knew there was no way it escaped Nick’s enhanced sensors. “I promise,” she mumbled, setting off the synth’s hearty laughter.

He gave her one last squeeze and left her side to go back to the others. She watched the sky turn from hazy orange and pink to lavender, and then to the dark blue that heralded night. The first stars were visible, twinkling and bright.

 _I’m coming for my friends_ , she thought to the Enclave, wherever they were. _You better be ready for me_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the readers who have put this rambling piece at over a thousand hits! And thank you for all the kind comments and kudos. Y'all are just wonderful.
> 
> I apologize for the delay with this chapter, I'm normally much more on the ball when it comes to updating. I've been battling the flu and now it's spread to the rest of my family, so time has either been spent coughing and hacking or taking care of others who are coughing and hacking. I'm starting to get better, so hopefully there won't be so much lag between now and the next chapter.


	28. Sleep

Hank saw Sturges at the fire as he approached. “Can’t sleep either?” he asked.

The mechanic turned his head and smiled, offering a seat next to him on the log they’d rolled up to the fire to sit on. “Nah. I know I shouldn’t worry about Val, she’s tougher than just about anything, but…”

“I know. It’s something of a habit, huh? For me, too.”

“Yeah.”

Hank settled down on the log companionably and watched the low flames dance and waver. At the edge of their bramble wrapped camp, he could see the glowing eyes of Nick and knew if he turned the other way, he would see Charon’s silhouette against the night sky. Val and Hancock had been gone a day, scouting further south in an attempt to find the Enclave’s hideout. It seemed the only one not worried or bothered was Rhys, who was sound asleep in his tent.

“Val and Hancock make a good team,” he said.

Sturges nodded. “They always did. When they weren’t screaming at each other, that is.”

“You’ve known Val a long time, haven’t you?”

“Met her the day she came out of the Vault, the day she saved our butts in Concord.” He shook his head, remembering. “Green as grass, just woken up to a whole new hell of a world. We didn’t know about her son then, or her husband. It was just her coming down the road through Concord, a pistol in her hand and a dog at her heels. Never saw anything like it.”

“The first time I met her was in Megaton. Gee was only about three months old, strapped to her chest like armor. Val had stuffed the baby’s ears with cotton balls she’d found somewhere, to muffle the sound of her rifle. I guess by then she’d learned everything she could about living in the wasteland, like she’d been born to it. I can’t imagine her any other way.”

“She was a quick study, for sure,” Sturges agreed. He poked the fire with a long stick, sending sparks into the sky. “It was a raw deal life dealt her, but she’s made the best of it she could. But what about you? We’ve heard the stories up here in the ‘Wealth, Lone Wanderer.”

Hank smiled to himself. “I grew up in a Vault. I never knew anything different until my father left. I didn’t know then that I hadn’t been born there. The world…well. It wasn’t what I expected it to be. I knew about the War, of course, learned it in school. And I knew there were irradiated things, that plant life was scarce and clean water impossible to find unless you had the means to make it yourself. I didn’t know about super mutants or ghouls.”

“Musta been a shock.”

“Yeah, you could say that. But like Val, I didn’t have any preconceived notions. I was able to roll with it, maybe not as well as she has, but still, I’ve made my way through the world pretty well, I’d say.”

“I have to agree,” Sturges said. “You were pretty young, then? I heard Nick say that Project Purity was a long time ago.”

“I was nineteen when I stepped out into the real world.” Hank didn’t really like remembering those early years after he left 101. Sure, he’d completed his father’s work with purifying the water and he’d learned some things, and defeated the Enclave, but…he’d lost many things he thought he could count on, and in losing his father, lost himself too for a while.

“Been a long road,” Sturges said into the silence that had fallen between them.

“It sure has.” He stared into the flames of the fire, and felt all the years and miles in between. “Twenty two years and a longer road than I ever imagined.”

“What are you gonna do once this is all over? Gonna go back to DC?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hell, I guess you got no reason to stay, huh, other than Val.” He threw another log onto the fire, and in the bright flare of sparks, Hank saw the mechanic’s eyes on him.

“I might,” he murmured. “You never know what might happen if you give it a shot.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

Hank leaned in, unsure, wary. But Sturges leaned too, and they met in the middle. It was a soft kiss, simple and undemanding. It left Hank wanting more. “I am too old to play games, Sturges,” he whispered, cupping his hands on the mechanic’s face. “If you want me, tell me so. If not, tell me that too.”

Sturges drew Hank’s hand down into his own and held them. “For a long time now, since I’ve known what I am, and others have too, I haven’t had anyone in my life. It’s not a game to me, Hank. I want you.”

Hank drew him closer and kissed him again. Sturges let go of his hands to wrap his arms around him, deepening the kiss, breathing into his mouth. The fire crackled and they could hear Nick and Charon shifting around as they kept watch out into the night and they drew apart, slightly breathless and maybe even a bit sheepish.

“Come inside with me,” Hank whispered, pulling Sturges to his feet. “Stay with me.”

“All right.”

***

Hank woke when the morning light filtered into the makeshift tent, unaccustomed warmth at his side. He rolled over and saw Sturges still sleeping there, next to him. It had felt perfectly natural to curl up together and sleep, like they’d done it before. Like they’d done a hundred times. It was quiet around them, the morning still young. From the lack of voices, Hank figured that Val and Hancock weren’t back yet from their reconnaissance. He wiggled around, getting more comfortable on the flimsy sleeping bag they’d shared, with another one on top as a cover. At least it hadn’t been too cold.

His shuffling woke Sturges, whose eyes shot open in something like shock before settling on his face. He smiled.

“Mornin’.”

“Good morning.”

“What time is it?”

“Early. I don’t think Val and Hancock are back yet.”

“So no rush to get up, huh?”

“No, no rush.” Hank brushed back a lock of hair that had gone unruly in the night and Sturges stilled under his touch. Hank knew how touch starved ghouls could be; he hadn’t thought about what it must be like for synths that knew what they were. That they faced the same kinds of prejudice and fear. But he wasn’t afraid. And he hadn’t lived with the overhanging threat of the Institute the way people of the Commonwealth had. He let his fingers trail across Sturges’s cheekbone and down to his jaw, his thumb swiping across his bottom lip.

“So what should we do with this extra time?” Sturges asked, a grin forming.

“I don’t know,” Hank replied, playing along. He leaned over and swept his tongue along Sturges’s bottom lip, watching the man’s eyes widen, pupils dilated. Just watching the desire rise in the mechanic had made him hard already. He smiled ruefully. “I feel like a kid again.”

“Me too,” Sturges murmured. “I…I didn’t think it would happen so fast.”

“Me neither.”

“So we take it as slow as we want.”

“All right.”

Hank slid down onto his side next to Sturges and kissed him again. He let his hands wander over the mechanic’s skin, down his arm, across a hip covered lightly by boxers. Sturges jerked at his touch, but it wasn’t to move away. Instead he got closer until their legs were pressed against each other. Hank felt a tentative hand come to rest along his ribcage and made an encouraging sound.

“I want so much more,” Sturges whispered against his lips, a chuckle bubbling in the back of his throat. “I don’t want to wait until you go off to fight the Enclave and leave me without knowing if you’ll come back.”

“Yes,” Hank said.

Their hands swept over each other, learning by touch what pleased each of them. Sturges’s hands were rough and work hardened, but they were hesitant on his skin. Hank pressed his hand on top of the mechanic’s firmly, letting him feel how much he needed him. Sturges smiled, lopsided and maybe a little surprised at the depth of his own want. When his fingers brushed against Hank’s erection, he groaned; they both did.

“Touch me,” Hank whispered harshly. Sturges met his eyes and pressed the flat of his hand against Hank’s underwear, cupping his cock through the thin cloth. In a matter of moments, his hand slipped under the elastic band of the boxers, wrapping around his cock in a grip so tight he nearly came right then and there.

“Touch me back,” Sturges urged, tilting his hips away so Hank could reach. Sturges filled his hand, his hard length pulsing against his palm. “Oh, the things I’ve wanted to do to you,” he whispered as Hank stroked him.

“And I you,” Hank replied, getting breathless as he neared his own climax. He groaned when Sturges hit a sensitive spot and even as he tried to swallow the sound, Sturges laughed softly and covered his mouth with his own in a kiss.

The morning sun crept along the floor of the tent as they stroked and gripped each other, bodies grown slick with sweat and mouths heated and greedy. With a sudden cry, Hank came into Sturges’s hand, the sticky fluid making his fingers slick on him. Struges chuckled, then gasped as Hank tightened his grip on him, stroking down hard enough to jolt him into his own climax. Their bodies sated, if only temporarily, they leaned on each other, arms wrapped tight and legs threaded together. Their kisses grew softer, gentler and their breathing slowed.

Hank heard the clanking of metal footsteps, followed by shouting and he knew that the moment was almost spent.

“We found it!” Val cried from outside and Sturges’s trailing fingers stilled on his back, holding him tight suddenly.

“I’m not ready to lose you,” he said.

“I’m not going to be lost,” Hank replied. “Not now, not ever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay...be kind. This was my first ever M/M smut. *hides behind hands and waits for the verdict of the readers*


	29. Found

Val was tired. She felt like she’d been on the go for months, for years, and really she had. First the long hike from Commonwealth to the Capital Wasteland and then back to the Commonwealth. Then the emotionally wearying cycle of trying to rebuild her relationships. And now this.

Now the Enclave, making her life difficult. Making all their lives difficult. She wondered if it would ever end, or if once this was all over, some new threat would crop up somewhere, needing her attention. Any thoughts of just fading into the shadows to live out her life as lover and mother had long since been crushed under the weight of saving the world from itself.

“You all right, Sunshine?” Hancock asked as they sat near the fire pit, finally getting dry and warm, finally eating something that wasn’t from a can or a box. She sighed.

“Yeah, just tired.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Hancock said, lighting a cigarette and watching the dancing flames.

“Yeah…”

“So, you found it,” Nick interjected, his dry, droll voice soothing to her frazzled nerves. No matter how tired she was, she still had a job to do.

“They haven’t gone to any trouble to hide it,” she said. “Right out in the open, about…hmm, what would you say, Hancock? A mile or so?”

“It was twenty streets. I counted on the way back.”

“Pretty straight shot, too, once you get on the right block.”

Nick nodded, as the only one who knew the grid layout of the old city like she did. “Did you see anything else?”

“No, and that was the creepy part. It’s like the whole city has been abandoned. Except for the ferals, we saw no one. No super mutants, no wildlife, no raiders.”

“No _living_ raiders,” Hancock said. “We saw plenty of dead ones. Not recent.”

“True,” she said with a nod in his direction.

“Dead raiders, huh? Wiped out the same way the caravan was?” Nick asked.

“Yeah.”

“So they have some firepower, and some _staying_ power too, if they’ve managed to keep the streets clear since.”

“What do we do now?” Hank asked, joining them in their little circle. Rhys and Sturges hung back, while Charon stood stoic and silent at the perimeter, still keeping watch.

“First I need to get some sleep,” Val said. “Then…” She shrugged. “Then we get inside their base.”

“Easy as pie,” Hank murmured.

“I doubt it,” Hancock said.

“Rhys, did you ever get through to Maxson?” Val asked before Hank and Hancock could get into it.

“I did,” the Paladin said.

“Good. Get on the horn again and give him a report. I’m going to get some sleep.”

***

With Val, Hank and Rhys in their power armor they looked just like a contingent of Brotherhood soldiers, if one looked past the fact that Val’s armor was painted cherry red and Hank’s was the dull gunmetal gray of a lead-lined finish. Charon and Hancock flanked them, with Nick in the rear. Sturges hadn’t wanted to leave the vertibird unattended. Val didn’t like leaving him there by himself, but he was armed with a combat rifle and hidden as much as he could be. Just because they hadn’t found anything roaming the streets of New York didn’t mean there was nothing there.

“So was it in the UN building?” Hank asked as they tramped down rubble strewn streets.

“Not quite,” she replied, her voice as tinny and muffled as his behind a helmet. “The UN building itself was mostly bombed out, but there was a complex nearby. Spotlights, turrets…even a flag. It was impossible to miss.”

“Like a welcoming party,” Hancock said darkly. “Can’t get past the fact that it feels like we’re walkin’ into a trap.”

“We probably are,” Charon said. The two ghouls exchanged glances.

“Oh, I’d say it’s safe to assume,” Val said, walking between them. “But that just means we’re prepared for it.”

“You always did have a flair for the dramatic, Sunshine.”

“And you’ve always loved it,” she retorted. Tucked away in her house in Goodneighbor was a black trench coat and matching fedora, the silver lining still shiny and new looking after all these years. The silver submachine gun was mounted on the wall in her personal armory. And Kent was still airing episodes of the old radio show, just as if the years hadn’t happened. She had never forgotten her adventures as the Silver Shroud, and neither had he. Those were some of their greatest moments together, taking down Sinjun and saving Kent.

The group traveled on, sneaking past empty buildings and debris filled streets that branched off at regular intervals. It was eerily quiet. Nothing moved other than themselves. Nothing made a sound other than their own footfalls.

 _This couldn’t be more ominous if it tried_ , Val thought.

Even taking each step as carefully as they could, hesitant to disturb the unnatural quiet, it didn’t take them long to arrive at the complex Val had told them of. It was a wide open area, the only low lying spot in a valley of skyscraper ruins. And indeed, there was a flag flying over the main building. The blue of the Enclave, with its hash marked ‘E’ in the center.

Val wondered what sort of impact seeing it was going to have on Hank. She’d heard plenty of stories of his youth, fighting against this very faction in DC. Of President John Henry Eden, who had turned out to be nothing more than a malfunctioning AI in a computer housing. He’d beaten them with that very weakness, she recalled. Hank had convinced Eden to self-destruct, after forcing a feedback loop until the computer realized it had exceeded its programming. He’d barely made it out of Raven Rock before the blast destroyed it. Of course, there had been a human remnant, one that he’d had to deal with at the very end. In many respects, it was Charon who was truly the hero of the wasteland, since he was the one who had actually installed the water purifier in the system that allowed Project Purity to be a success. But he had never been one to accept public acclaim easily.

“There it is,” she said softly, stopping in her tracks to take in the view. The squat main building looked like an insect huddled on the ground, symmetrical but misshapen. There were double doors leading inside, but no windows anywhere. The flag stood on a pedestal on the roof, while the smoking remains of turrets stood on each corner.

“You and Hancock took them out, I presume,” Hank said.

“Yeah. But we didn’t go inside.”

“But either way, it’s probably safe to assume that they know we’re here.”

“Yeah,” she repeated.

“All right, then,” Nick said, his battered coat and fedora looking very out of place with all that power armor. “Let’s see what we can see, shall we?”

“Let’s do it.”

There was no way to sneak up to a door plainly sitting in the center of a wide open courtyard, so they didn’t try. Instead they merely walked up to them, weapons drawn, senses alert for any sound or movement. There was none.

The doors were not even locked.

“I don’t like this,” Rhys murmured.

“Not at all,” Val agreed.

Inside the atrium of the Enclave building it was clean and empty. Bright white lights shone down on them, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere. A long corridor led up the middle of the atrium, ending in another set of double doors. One either side of the corridor were more doors, but investigating those showed they led only to derelict offices, equally clean and empty save for the desks built into the floor. There were no terminals, no records. The offices were large, and judging from the numbers of desks, had once employed hundreds of people. Above the open spaces, hanging cubicles hugged the edges, with glass windows still intact.

“Good old middle management,” Val said, and Nick chuckled.

“What do you mean?” Hank asked.

She pointed at the cubicles. “The workers would be down here, while management was on high, watching over everything. The unseen hand of God kind of thing.”

“Oh. Sounds…cheerful.”

“Yeah, if you like having the Man breathe down your neck,” Hancock said.

“Corporate America at its finest,” Nick said sardonically. “Some things never changed.”

“Until it all did,” Val said. “C’mon gang, we’re not getting any closer to finding out what’s going on here by standing around gawking at empty desks.”

They went back out into the atrium and went down the central corridor as a group. Charon and Hancock pulled open the double doors and they were greeted with the sight of a column that ran from the high ceiling down into the ground. There was a security fence surrounding it, but when they stood up close, they could look through the panels in the floor to see it disappear into the gloom below.

“Welcome to the Archive Command Center,” said a male computerized voice from nowhere. Everyone stopped and looked at each other, each checking their weapons for readiness. “Welcome to the Enclave.”


	30. Animal

Val had found the voice interface, hidden in plain sight, lost in the grandeur of the column itself. She'd gotten it to tell them things, like why there were no raiders outside, and why they hadn't been hiding. Charon couldn't make sense of it all, but some of it he could.

“So, Vault-Tec must have gotten their cryogenic technology built here,” Val said as they all rode down to the lower level in the elevator, bunched together like a can of Cram.

“I think there's a bigger picture here,” Hancock said. “The drug that turned me...it was made here.”

Charon saw her take the Mayor's hand in hers, even gloved in her power suit. Nothing more needed to be said. He still had never learned why Hancock had turned himself ghoul, although he could guess, but to find out that he had been nothing more than a small part of a larger experiment had to be...troubling.

The Enclave had perfected a calculated dose of FEV to turn humans into ghouls. What was most disturbing about all this what the fact that for many years – certainly all the ones that Charon had been in the Capital Wasteland – the Enclave had wanted to destroy anything touched by radiation. Anything that had been mutated by it. The form of FEV they had wanted Hank to poison Project Purity with would have become airborne within hours and would have spread far enough to kill every living thing, that wasn't in a Vault or Raven Rock, in a matter of days or weeks.

“I want to know why,” Charon growled. Their heads turned towards him as he spoke. “Why would the Enclave here want to turn people into ghouls, when the Enclave in DC wanted to kill them?”

“I think that's what we're going to find out once we get down there,” Val said softly, as the elevator thumped to a silent stop.

That was another thing that was bothering him. This whole place was as pristine as if the war hadn't happened. All the tech worked, all the power was running. Nothing was derelict or abandoned except the office spaces above. And there were no people, although they had found out why.

 _Cryogenic suspension_ , he thought. _Just like Val_.

Once the stores of food and supply of fresh water had begun to run out, the surviving members of the Enclave had chosen to go under, and set the programming of the Archive to find a way for them to survive long term. Evidently, the long term solution appeared to be ghoulism.

The elevator doors opened and let them out into a wide space, the column still running down the center. The light was lower here, drifting off into the edges far enough away that they could barely be seen. The space was huge, easily the size of the footprint of Megaton.

He had few memories of before the war, fewer still of being young, of ever being anything other than what he was, a slave, a killer. A ghoul. Charon had lived a long time; he knew this, at least academically. But there were some memories he held onto, kept fresh in order to never experience them in real life again.

Cages.

The underground portion of the Enclave was full of cages. He felt an unstoppable rage building up inside him, one that he could neither explain nor fully justify. He just knew he wanted to unleash it. Most of the cages were empty but there was evidence inside them that said they had been recently used. Each one had a pallet for a bed, a bucket for waste and some had bodies in them. Feral bodies.

“Are they asleep or dead?” Val whispered, as if she didn't dare disturb the air with her voice. The others had ranged out until they stood in a line, weapons still drawn and ready, senses heightened with adrenaline and chems.

“Only one way to find out,” Hank said, stepping away from the line and walking up to the nearest cage with a feral in it. Nothing happened as he approached, even when he put his hand in the cage and shook the form lying on the pallet. “Pretty sure it's dead.”

Val walked over the Archive column and addressed the interface. “Archive? Explain, please.”

“These holding cells were used to house the participants of my experiments in safety and isolation. Tests results were a necessary part of the ongoing investigation of how irradiated humans react and mutate,” the male computerized voice of the Archive said dispassionately.

“And the dead bodies?” Hancock spat.

“Attrition of test subjects is to be expected and has been increasingly reduced as my process becomes more refined.”

“What exactly are you looking for?” Val asked. Charon could tell she was swallowing down her revulsion at hearing human beings called test subjects that had every expectation of dying. Like lab rats. Like animals.

“In order to be precise with the dosage of FEV for my Enclave remnant, I need to know exactly how much of the serum a human can metabolize before losing cognition.”

“What does that mean?” Hank asked of no one in particular.

Val had removed her helmet to speak with the interface and Charon caught the look on her face when she turned to them. It was horrified and angry. “The Archive is deliberately turning ghouls feral.”

“Why?” Nick asked, incredulous.

“Archive, why are doing this?”

“I must know how much irradiated humans can withstand the conditions and elements before applying the serum to my Enclave remnant. The experiment is pointless if it does not produce viable survivors.”

“Oh my God,” Val breathed. “That's why you've been kidnapping ghouls, isn't it? You need already existing 'irradiated humans' in order to test them. Do you have any idea how unethical that is?”

The column was silent for a moment, as if it was processing her words. “Ethics do not compute in this situation. I was given a task and programmed to execute it as readily as I could. I have done so within my physical limitations. I have spent approximately one hundred and ninety seven years, ten months and fourteen days working on a solution for my Enclave remnant to survive in the current environment.”

“I wanna know something,” Hancock said, stepping up to the interface himself. “Why have you chosen ghouls from all over the place? I mean, why from the Commonwealth and the Capital Wasteland?”

“These names do not compute. But I believe I can still answer. A wide demographic of test subjects ensured better data. My drones have collected samples from the length of the eastern seaboard in order to provide me with a large enough population of irradiated humans with which to work.”

“Wait...drones?” Charon asked. “What drones?”

“Archive?” Val asked.

“I have retrofitted suits of power armor with short term artificial intelligence in order to go abroad. The drones are linked to me and as long as there is a carrier wave for the signal there is nothing to halt them from any work I might have requirement of.”

“Let me get this straight,” Hancock said, running his hand over his head. “You had your drones invade a settlement, kill all the humans in it and gather up all the ghouls. Is that right?”

“You are referring to the collection of irradiated humans at 42°N by 71°W, is that correct?” The others looked at each other in incomprehension, but Val and Nick were looking at each other. The synth was still – his processing stance, Val had once said – and when he came out of it he nodded. His robotic brain must be able to determine longitude and latitude.

“Yes,” Val said. “That location was a settlement of humans, Archive, which your drones murdered in order to get you your _samples_. Is there no programming for ethics in that case?” she finished snidely. Charon would never forget the sounds she had made in her rage and grief at the Slog, finding all the humans dead and ghouls gone. None of the others would either, he would be willing to bet.

“Loss of human life was regrettable in that instance,” the Archive replied, still completing without inflection or tone. “If they had not resisted, no violence would have been necessary.”

“Are you trying to imply that while creating a formulation to turn humans into ghouls, you don't think that ghouls that already exist are still people?” Val asked. “How the _fuck_ does that compute, Archive! Tell me how you can justify killing people while trying to argue that you're saving them?”

“My programming only includes the directive that my Enclave remnant is a priority. I see no need to spare other life forms in order to fulfill my orders.”

“Is there any way we can get you to stop?” Hancock growled, his patience clearly at an end. Charon's was too, and the pair of them exchanged a look that needed no words. If it was the last thing he did, Charon wanted to tear this fucking computerized brain apart.

“My orders come from the Enclave remnant. Only a member of that remnant may change my programming.”

“Well, I guess we'll just have to wake them up, then,” Val said, an undertone of malice in her voice that said she was as fed up as he was.

“That would be inadvisable, since I have not completed my experiments,” the Archive said.

“Watch me.” Val gestured at the rest of them and they stepped away from the column until they were out of 'earshot' from the interface. “Now we just gotta figure out how.”


	31. Armed

“Hey, Nick,” Hancock called out from behind an overturned metal desk. The automated turrets were hailing bullets on them in a steady _whump whump_ and the group was spread out all over the corridor, taking pots shots from whatever cover they'd managed to find. 

“What?” Nick called back, sounding irritated.

“Been wondering something. Since we're all likely to die here, I just gotta know...does the clockwork dick actually _have_ a clockwork dick? Been botherin' me for ages.”

“John!” Val gasped from across the corridor, where she was hiding behind a filing cabinet, leaning out to take calculated aim with her rifle.  Already her power suit was banged up pretty good.  She never had put her helmet back on either, so she was effectively as vulnerable as he was.

“Rude,” Charon muttered from up ahead, his red hair just barely visible behind a storage locker. Hank just laughed. Rhys was no longer there – he'd gone back to Sturges and the vertibird to make a report – but Hancock was able to imagine his frown and it made him giggle internally. Nick was silent for a moment before answering. With a small explosion the first turret went down from his .45 revolver.

“Enjoying yourself, John?” Nick drawled.

“Yeah, I am,” Hancock replied, standing up quickly to unload his double barrels into the nearer target before ducking back under the table again.

“How high are you?” Nick called out without heat, although his signature snark was evident.

“I dunno,” Hancock answered truthfully. Too many Mentats and Jet, not enough sleep. The second turret exploded and silence fell around them. They all slowly stood up and assessed the injuries among themselves while Nick walked back towards Hancock's spot, a small quirked smile playing around his plastic lips.

“You'd have to ask Ellie,” he said and Val burst out laughing, breaking what remained of the battle tension.

They had discovered the corridor only after exploring the far edges of the area with the cages. The doors had been sturdily locked but between Hank and Val's abilities with lockpicking, they didn't prove to be much of a challenge. However, as soon as they started down the corridor, turrets dropped out of the ceiling and opened fire. The Archive had made it plain it would not hesitate to kill them if they went searching for the Enclave remnant cryogenically frozen. At least they knew now that it meant it.

“Well,” Hank said. “We must be on the right track.”

“Definitely seems like the Archive wants to keep out the riffraff, yet here we are,” Hancock said, lighting up a cigarette. Val snorted and he felt pleased that the old one liner still worked on her.

“We should be prepared to meet more resistance the closer we get,” Charon commented in his growling way. He cracked open his shotgun and reloaded it, tossing the spent casings to the floor. Val nodded in agreement and for a brief moment Hancock wondered if he should be worried that they were still so friendly. He dismissed it, though. She'd made her choice, and it was obvious when she came over to him and checked him for injury.

“I'm fine, Sunshine.”

“Just checking,” she said archly.

“You just want to put your hands on me.”

She grinned and cocked a saucy eye at him. “You complaining?”

“Nah,” he whispered, leaning in close to wrap an arm around her and plant a kiss on her forehead when she bent down for him. She leaned on him for a minute, then took a deep breath and forged a path down the corridor, skirting cabinets and desks and tables the littered the space as if deliberately set up to be an obstacle course. Nowhere else in the facility had they seen so many obstructions in their path than this particular hallway. Of course, he admitted, they hadn't exactly gone down many hallways to begin with.

At the other end of the corridor lay another pair of doors and Val and Hank got to work on them too while the others regrouped and took a breather.

“Got it,” Val murmured as the lock sprang open and the door clicked. She and Hank pushed them wide and she made another sound, one he'd hoped to never hear again. It was pained, almost like a keening intake of breath more than speech and she covered her mouth with her hand. He rushed up to her and looked around her to see a row of glass faced pods, like memory loungers only vertical, each attached to hoses and pipes that steamed faintly.

“Cryo pods,” Nick said softly, as if any of them couldn't tell either from Val's reaction or the obviously frozen faces just visible behind foggy glass.

“Guess we found the Enclave remnant,” Hank said, stepping down out of his suit. Hancock braced Val against him with a hand on her waist, turning her in the suit enough her head turned head away from the pods. She blinked and he could see that she was remembering. Remembering waking up cold and dripping and alone. Surrounded by death, decay and the coldhearted lack of concern and empathy from a government run agency that was supposed to save lives but instead left the workers, scientists and all the frozen ones in there to die.

“Stay with me, Valara,” he said, steadfastly refusing to crumble before her stricken expression. “C'mon now, stay with me.”

“John...”

“Don't look anymore, all right?” He turned her body away from the scene that even reminded him too much of Vault 111 the one time she'd taken him there.  She got out of her suit to wrap her arms around him. “Not 'til you're ready.”

Hank and Charon wandered between the pods, looking them over carefully. Nick found a terminal at one end and started bringing up screens full of names and dates – the logs, he assumed.

“They're nothing like I thought they'd be,” Hank said to Charon, who made a noncommittal sound. “Not like Vault 112.”

“How many are there?” Hancock called out over Val's shoulder. She'd buried her face in his neck and he held her tight. Her rock, he thought. She needed him to be her rock right now. But that didn't mean he could entirely ignore the mission.

“Looks like there's twenty pods, and they're all...”

“Occupied,” Charon said when Hank didn't seem to know what to say. He'd just caught sight of Val cringing against Hancock and a look of sympathy washed over his face. Hancock was willing to bet she'd never told him what it was like to wake up from her long frozen sleep, and it was just now dawning on the Lone Wanderer exactly what she'd been through. Oddly, or maybe not so odd given their past together, it seemed that Charon already knew.

“Dammit,” Nick swore, fingers typing madly at the terminal. “The Archive locked me out.”

Hancock sprang into action, pushing Val against the wall and closing the double doors. It was easy to lock them again but he worried it wouldn't be enough. He started pulling a filing cabinet in front of them too.

“What are you doing, Hancock?” Val asked, her voice sounding a bit more like herself.

“If the Archive knows we're in here, you don't think it's gonna try and stop us from wakin' them up? You think those turrets were the only defense?”

“The drones,” Nick said. “Fully automated power suits...”

“That Mac said he couldn't land a shot on,” she finished, her face firming into resolve. “All right, I guess we need to get battle ready, huh.”

“Yup,” Hancock agreed, tipping the cabinet on its side to block the doors. It wasn't quite long enough and he went back into the cryo room to see what else he could find to use as a barricade. Charon joined him and together they were able to carry a tool chest, easily as tall as the red haired ghoul, over to the doors to block them. By then they could hear thumping footsteps, proving that Hancock was right. "Get back in your suit!"

“Any other exits we need to worry about?” Nick asked. Hank ran off on a quick circuit of the room to check after clambering into his power armor hastily.

“No, but there are windows down at the other end. If they break that glass, we're all in deep shit.”

“They won't risk killing the remnant,” Val said.

“They probably got no problem killin' us, Sunshine,” Hancock retorted dryly.

“That's my point. We stick close to the pods, using them as shields.”

“Here's hoping it works,” Nick said.

“Hank, I have pulse grenades, what do you have?”

“I have a couple, but not many. I packed mostly frag.”

“What I wouldn't give for a Gauss rifle about now,” Val muttered. Hancock laughed and pulled one from his pack. “What? You had that this whole time?”

“I ain't a dummy. Mac said ballistic was no good, so I snatched this from your chest.”

“Have I told you recently that I love you?”

“Yeah, but you can tell me again.”

“How 'bout later, if we're still all alive,” Hank said, rolling his rifle into his shoulder just as the first resounding crash against the door landed.

“Get ready, gang!” Val cried and took up a position behind the nearest cryo pod, the others following suit until they looked like they were playing the world's most dangerous game of hide and seek. Hancock had handed over the Gauss rifle to Val and slipped his shotgun into his hands. It might be tough to land shots on the suits, but that didn't mean he wasn't gonna try his damnedest.

“Let's light'em up!” he shouted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I totally lay the blame for the clockwork dick joke on my husband, but I promised I would use it, so there it is. 
> 
> I'm sorry...


	32. Dogfight

If Nick Valentine had been of a more fanciful nature, he would write a story of what he saw that day in the bowels of the Enclave Archive. He would start: _once upon a time, there was a woman out of her time, but in her element_...

He watched Val prime the Gauss rifle Hancock had handed over to her, along with a fistful of 2mm EC's, the humming cycle of the electromagnetic charge the only sound besides the stomping footsteps of the AI power suits. Nick knew each blast of the rifle would shoot what was essentially a marble at incredibly high speed, and would hopefully overcome whatever ballistic protection the power suits had. He had seen Val use this particular one in the past, and had seen her take down creatures like deathclaws in one or two shots. It was armor piercing, inaccurate and devastating. He hoped it would be enough, if what MacCready had told them was true and these suits were powered with a ballistic repellent. The Gauss rifle was fast and overcharged; he _prayed_ it would be enough.

... _Her companions were death, carnage and hope_...

He widened his field of view and saw Hank and Charon side by side, their positions born of long understanding and cooperation that had likely kept them alive for the last twenty years or so. Charon's shotgun was ready and Hank knelt at his feet, laser pistol in hand. Both of them were using the cover of a cryo pod the way Val was. Val gave Hancock her pulse grenades, since she would be aiming to take out the suits with the rifle and his aim was better than hers. Again, it was a long standing cooperative concert that had kept the pair of them alive more times than they could count.

And then there was himself, part old world cop, part new world synth detective. His old .44 wasn't going to be of much use other than a distraction, so he put it away and pulled out a modified laser rifle, similar to Hank's. Val had made him this one, modding the receiver so that it did burning damage as well as the standard energy damage of its counterparts.

... _And together they fought against tyranny, injustice and evil_...

The doors of the cryo room thudded dully as the suits tried to break them down. Nick turned his head and watched the hinges groan under the repeated strain, watched the filing cabinets the ghouls had piled there shudder and move by increments. The barrier would not be enough to keep them out for long. And down at the other end of the gallery, he heard glass shatter as the window Hank had found was blasted away, giving the AI's at that end clear and open range to fire on them.

And then it was chaos.

The AI suits used energy weapons, although not of a type Nick had seen before. They were like a combination of plasma and laser, pinpoint precise but with enough splash damage that a single drop could burn a hole right through armor. He remembered what MacCready had looked like when they brought him into the Memory Den that night. He was covered in burns and his clothes were scorched. He had been battered and bloody, but that could have been more from the Brahmin falling on him than anything else. Indeed, the mercenary had told them that was how he'd gotten out alive.

... _The battle was bloody and long and wordless_...

Hancock chucked a grenade at the broken window, shooting his double barrel from the hip simultaneously to keep the AI's focused on him. The pulse went off, sending a blinding wave of electricity throughout the room. There was a sound like crackling and two of the suits dropped back from the main fight, damaged. With a cry of triumph, the ghoul threw another one as Val lifted the rifle and aimed carefully, holding the charge until it was full. The signature cycling sound of the rapidly rotating magnets sounded and a blast of energy, laden with small ballistic impacters, left the weapon and hit the torso of the suit closest to her. The energy dispersed against the repellent, but sent it sideways into the next suit, blowing away a chunk of actuator and causing that AI's arm to drop, useless.

“It's working!” Hank shouted, his laser pistol going off in quick shots – automatic, Nick thought – while Charon steadily pumped shell after shell into the armor, ducking away as some of the shots bounced back towards him.

The doors finally gave way, although the cabinets stayed in place, keeping the handful of AI's trapped there outside the room. Their precision weapons sniped and blasted around them, now from two sides, but they seemed to be less interested in killing than maiming. Nick took a shot in his leg that would have disabled a human, but he felt only a dull sort of numbness. Luckily, he didn't bleed.

It seemed using the pods as cover was a good plan, keeping the AI's from blindly filling the room with their shots, but at the same time, forcing them to take more careful aim was still having a detrimental effect. Val took a hit, directly in her chest plate and slumped to the floor with a grunt. Hancock didn't miss a beat, throwing a grenade over the cabinets and scooping up the Gauss rifle with his free hand, letting the shotgun fall.

... _The woman out of time cannot be halted, only slowed_...

The rhythmic sound of the rifle overtook any attempt at conversation. Nick counted ten AI suits, now all in some stage or other of disrepair. Between the pulse grenades scrambling their circuits and the Gauss rifle battering at the ballistic repellent, they were slowly whittling them down. Pieces of the armor were beginning to break under the impact of the rifle, and it seemed even Charon's shotgun blasts were beginning to impact through the shielding, lodging into actuators and splintering the aged metal plates.

“Hank!” Hancock shouted over the cacophony of the fight. “Get Val under cover and get her stimmed. I see blood over here.”

“On it,” the blond man said, dropping low and ducking between the pods, still firing his laser pistol, until he reached her side. Nick heard the hiss of a stimpak and Val's labored breathing eased. He tuned them out and focused once more on the AI's attempting to break into the room through the barricade at the door.

“John,” he cried, “we gotta get these suits down over here. I can't keep them back on my own.”

“Charon, think fast,” Hancock said, tossing over some of the pulse grenades to the other ghoul. Charon caught them neatly and threw one of them through the broken window, landing it in the middle of the four AI's remaining. When it went off, the wave of electricity covered all four suits, which then stood still as their circuits fried, disconnecting the AI's from the fusion cores.

“Lucky shot,” Hank teased his friend, who glared at him in silence before unloading his shotgun into each suit at point blank range, blowing off helmets and arms and indenting the torsos of each until they were nothing more than ragged slag.

With a whine of broken circuitry, the suits powered down, leaving the remaining three at the door to be dealt with. Hancock pounded into the trio of AI's with the Gauss rifle, shouting incoherently as he did. Nick kept up his laser fire, and Charon his shotgun blasts, until all three were smoking hulks in the corridor. And silence fell around them as the team just breathed in relief for a moment.

“I don't believe in luck,” Charon said after a while, and gave Hank a shove in the shoulder, accompanied by a rusty chuckle. “How's Val?”

“She'll be all right. Her armor took most of the impact, but it bruised her sternum pretty good. Probably cracked some ribs.” Hank looked up at Hancock, who nodded and together they carried her carefully to the back of the cryo room, laying her out flat on the floor.

“Gotta be some blankets around here somewhere,” Hancock said. “Didn't they live down here a while before deciding to take the big freeze?”

“That's what the Archive said,” Hank replied. “I'll see what I can scrounge up.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Nick checked each suit while the others treated Val's wounds. He pulled the intact fusion cores from them and cut the wires attaching the AI's to the suits on those that he couldn't reach. Then he went back to working on the Archive's lockout.

“Think you can hack it?” Hank asked him in a low voice.

“I haven't met a computer yet that can keep me out,” Nick said, with no sense of false pride. It was true after all. It would just take time.

“Good enough, man. We'll keep watch, and hope there aren't any more surprises left for us.”

“Don't get your hopes up too high,” Nick warned. “But I think we're all right for now.”

… _The battle was won, for that moment, but the war had not ended_...


	33. Recover

Val groaned. Her chest hurt, her elbows hurt from where she'd knocked them when she fell, and her head was pounding. But she was warm. And the steady breathing behind her told her why. She smiled to herself, rolling over to face Hancock on the thin pallet they were cuddled up on.

“Hey, you awake?” she whispered. His black eyes opened and he looked her over, the relief on his face plain as day.

“Mornin' Sunshine.”

“How can you even tell down here?” she teased, threading her arm under his to wrap around him and hold him close. They seemed to be using the frockcoat as a pillow and were covered with an unzipped sleeping bag. She could hear the quiet hum and hiss of the cryo pods at the other end of the room, but as long as she could focus on Hancock, they didn't bother her.

“How you feelin'?” he asked. She took a deep breath, just to see how much was ache from laying on the floor and how much was residual injury. It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would and she smiled again.

“I'm all right, I think. Thirsty.”

“Not surprising. Had to hit you with a stimpak.” He rummaged in his pack, his arm raised up out of her eyeline, but when he brought it back he handed her a canister of purified water.

“Is there anything you _didn't_ bring with you in that pack?”

“I dunno, I think I got all the bases covered. Weapons, ammo...chems.”

“Of course.”

“Hey...don't bitch.”

“I wasn't.”

She propped herself up on one arm and cracked open the water, spilling a little down her neck as she drank. Hancock chuckled and traced the line of it as it seeped into her tee shirt and she shivered under his touch. When the water was gone she tucked the empty container somewhere behind her back, never taking her eyes off him.

“So...you're feelin' all right?” he rasped, roughened fingertips still gently following the trail of water down her throat and over her collarbone. She nodded and hummed an affirmative noise. He raised his face back to hers and grinned lopsidedly. “That's good.”

He leaned towards her and their lips met. She didn't need to ask if the others were nearby; if they had been she would have heard them by now. And she didn't need to ask her lover whether or not the timing was right, because it almost never was, and it never mattered. She didn't need to know that she had nearly died – probably would have if not for her armor – Hancock's sudden urgency told her plenty.

They rolled onto his frockcoat, still kissing, and his hands mapped her sides, molding her to him. His hands were shaking when he pulled away from the kiss to frame her face. His eyes were suddenly solemn and endless in the shadows of the room.

“When we get out of here, you and I need to have a serious talk.”

“About what?” she asked, going slightly breathless as he shifted his weight on her. She had always loved the feel of him on top of her. It was more than merely intimate. It was comforting in a way she couldn't explain.

“About the future. No more runnin' away Valara Thorsgaard. No more secrets, no more crazy stunts. I love you woman, and you love me. That is all that matters.”

“Sounds like we just talked about it,” she grinned. He grinned back. “Now, were you about to show me how glad you are that I'm all right?”

“I was,” he agreed, dipping into the hollow of her neck to nip at her skin. She shivered in his arms and he chuckled against her.

Snippets of old memories flashed through her mind as he worked his way down her body, tugging away the tee shirt and slipping his hands into the waistband of her underwear to bare her skin to his touch. The sunlight pouring through the windows of the house in Goodneighbor, reflecting off his black eyes. Frying brahmin steaks in the cramped kitchen until the room was filled with smoke. Power noodles in the dead of night in Diamond City, evading the guards and any citizens who might complain. And through all of them ran a single common theme. Their love for each other.

Her time with the Brotherhood had cracked the veneer, but couldn't truly splinter their love. She'd had to make a choice, and for better or worse, the Brotherhood of Steel had gotten the job done. Her pain and horror at having to destroy her son and all he'd worked for had made her run, made her hide from what she knew, but then there was Gee, living proof of their love.

And she'd come back to him, as she knew she should have much sooner.

“John...?”

“Yeah?”

“I don't ever want to let you go again.”

He smiled gently and ran his finger down her her nose, flicking the end of it. “I ain't gonna letcha.”

At some point while she was musing over their past he'd managed to get naked, and now he slid between her legs like it was the most natural thing in the world. As if ten years hadn't passed since they'd been together so much. It was still as easy as breathing to fall into the pattern they'd once lived by. She was ready, burning for him. But he didn't enter her. Not right away. He pressed kisses along the side of her neck, following the scars like he tended to do now. His touch had healing in it, she thought. For years she'd felt like she'd been broken by the ruins of her former world, that she'd become just another hard wastelander eking out a living, struggling to survive day to day. His reverence told her that she was more than that. That she had always been more than that.

The world would recover, and so would she.

“Now, John,” she murmured. “Don't make me wait.”

“Anything for my Sunshine,” he said and pushed into her with a smooth thrust. She wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing him deeper into her body.

It was slow and gentle, both of them mindful of any noise and the fact that she was recovering from injury. Each stroke brought little peaks of pleasure to her core, each rasping slide of his skin against hers created friction that hit all the right spots. Her breath grew ragged and she wanted to moan aloud, to cry out and encourage him to go faster, but they had to stay quiet. It heightened the sensations, made her focus on them. He grinned down at her, knowing what was in her head. His look was sly and teasing, promising that he would deliver on everything she wanted. But two could play that game.

She hooked him with her leg and braced her elbows to roll over with him. He gasped when his back hit the cold floor and she winced when her knees hit it, but she was triumphant too. She straddled him, holding down his hands in her own as she rode him harder, feeling the stretch inside as he filled her more completely.

“C'mon love,” he growled out. “Come for me.”

She heard herself whining over the feeling of fullness and she bucked on him, sitting back and letting him run his hands over her. He teased her clit with his thumb, eyes intent on her face as she moved and brought them both closer to finish. With a suddenness that shocked her, she came around him, clenching and spasming. He groaned quietly, the sound of it urging her her body on in the aftershocks. She slammed her hips into his, almost violent in her bliss.

He rolled her back over, his strength more than equal to hers, and pressed her back into the pallet, lifting her legs until they were on his shoulders. The angle was tight and with her knees tucked up into her ribs she could barely breathe, much less cry out. Hancock was fiercely concentrating on keeping his thrusts even but hard, filling her as much as he could until he fell over the edge. His orgasm shook his whole body, while he strained to stay silent, gritting his teeth, making the muscles jump in his jaw.

He released her legs and measured his length across her, fingers tangling in her hair. She met his kiss with the same fire tempered with affection. She hummed in her throat and ran her tongue over his bottom lip, mimicking their sex when he opened his mouth for her. She didn't know – or care – how long they stayed like that. But eventually he slipped from her body with a slick sound and she giggled, earning herself a half-hearted glare.

“You wear me out, woman,” he said softly.

“Yeah, but you love it,” she replied.

“Yeah, I do.” He kissed her a final time before moving off her to find a rag or something to clean up with. “You should get some more rest.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Just keepin' watch. You sleep. I'll be here.”

“All right.”

She knew there was much to be done yet. They still had to find a way to shut down the Archive and free the remnant. But she wanted the moment to linger, wanted to stay watching him as he dressed quickly and walked the perimeter of the room, his shirt glaringly white under the lights. At last she gave in her remaining exhaustion, and tucking up the frockcoat under her head, she went back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh*
> 
> I know it's been a while since I updated this. Life's been crazy and the muse has been sullen. I'm hoping to be more regular, but I make no promises.


	34. Unlocked

Hank didn't sleep well down in the Archive bunker. He just couldn't get the sound of the Archive's voice out of his head. It brought back too many memories.

“ _Hello, America, it is I, John Henry Eden, your President._..”

So he stalked the empty spaces between the cages in the central column room, preferring the hissing ferals, and even the dead bodies, to the past embodied by the voice in his head. It had been nearly the same way joining Val on the Prydwen. He'd known Arthur Maxson when he was just a scribe, a boy with a dream of being Elder someday...a long way away. He remembered when Sarah Lyons died. He'd been there, at the Citadel, when they brought back her body. He remembered hearing about the day Arthur returned triumphant with a deathclaw hand proudly displayed on his shoulder, the raking scars – so like Val's – marring his young face. Arthur had stopped being a boy and became Elder that day. And Hank had left the service of the Brotherhood of Steel when it became apparent that Arthur's vision did not match that of the Lyons family.

“You've lived your whole life preparing for this moment,” he'd said to the young Elder when he left. “But you've never actually _lived_ your life. You've spent so much time cooped up in here reading old texts and absorbing the racist ideals of the past. You're too young to be this arrogant.”

“And you have become polluted by this world, Henry,” Arthur had shot back, his face red with all the pent up rage only a sixteen year old can possess. “Look at you, traveling with that ghoul and being friends with it! It's an abomination that should be put out of its misery.”

“Out of yours, you mean,” Hank had retorted. “You think ghouls like being what they are? You think any one of them would have chosen this life? You think the pre-war ones wanted to watch their world go up in flames and then be reviled and hated for still being alive? You're a fool, Arthur. And you're going to turn the Brotherhood into something just as horrible as the Enclave someday if you don't change your thinking.”

Hank took no pleasure in knowing he had been proven right. He'd distanced himself from the Brotherhood of Steel until any interaction with them was through an intermediary. He was saddened at losing the friends he'd made as a young man, but he refused to sell out on his principles that all men – ghoul or not – deserved basic courtesy and respect. He'd seen too much and been through too much at the hands of the real monsters like the Enclave and Vault-Tec to be anything other than compassionate to the downtrodden.

But Val was there with Gee. He, Charon and Val had cobbled together a family out of their mismatched pasts and unknown futures. She'd given him friendship and a purpose again. He found new ways to fight the Good Fight with her at his side, Charon watching their backs. He didn't think twice about joining her on this trip to the Commonwealth; they were after clues of _his_ friend after all. Which reminded him of why he was stalking the feral cages. They had found the pitiful remains of the Archive's experiments, but they hadn't found the missing ghouls they were looking for. There had to be another holding area, there just had to be.

He poked around the edges of the huge cage room and found several doors locked tight. Val had done her best to shield them from the Archive's prying eyes, disabling or destroying turrets and cameras, but he wasn't too sure what picking any of those locks would do, or what security the AI still had in place.

Raven Rock had been manned by Enclave soldiers and robots. Every inch had been surveilled and monitored. This place...this was like walking through an abandoned Vault that might be booby-trapped. Like a larger version of Vault 112, with its implanted virtual reality memories and warped Dr. Braun that had sucked him in before he knew what was happening. The similarities here at the Archive weren't lost on him. He just hoped he wouldn't have the guilt over the lives lost here as he did regarding that cold, sterile place.

Guilt...and sorrow.

He'd finally found James, only to lose him again before they'd had a chance to do more than interact like a couple of acquaintances rather than father and son. Even now, more than twenty years later, he couldn't think of his father as his father. He was just James in his memory. Whatever else he had been to Hank had been lost along the way, and now there was no way to recover it.

***

Hank found Val and Hancock with Nick back in the cryo pod room. The synth had been steadily working his way through the encryption that locked him out of the Archive system, hoping to crack it and get the remnants of the former base awake again. They all agreed it was the best solution. Wake the remnant, have them disable the Archive peacefully and rejoin the world, as crappy as it was.

“Hunk'o'Hank!” Val cried when she saw him. Her eyes were lit up with a happy glow he had never seen in them. “He got in!”

“Excellent,” he replied and joined them at the terminal to peer over Nick's shoulder. “So what do we know?”

“There's a lot of logs in here, most of it doesn't make much sense to me,” Nick said, tapping away with mismatched hands on the keyboard. “Too much science mumbo jumbo. I think I might have actually gotten into the Archive's data logs.”

“And they're complete in there?” Hank asked, watching as screen after screen of detailed notes on theories and experiments scrolled by.

“It appears that way.”

“Are there logs telling where the ghouls are kept when the Archive isn't experimenting on them? I mean, that's what we were hoping to find out, isn't it?”

“I'll keep looking.”

“Val,” Hank said, drawing her attention away from the others hovering over the terminal. “I found some locked doors around the feral cages in that central room, but I didn't want to pick them until I knew what kind of security threat I might face. What do you think?”

“I think we've probably knocked the wind from the Archive's sails already,” she replied dryly, gesturing to the crumpled power armor suits still heaped outside the doors of the cryo room. “If there was anything else coming for us, it would have gotten here by now.”

“Well, shall we see what we can see, Valley Girl?”

“Let's,” she agreed with a jaunty nod.

He chuckled to see her in such high spirits, as if things had finally started to go her way for a change. And he supposed they had. Against many odds she'd survived all these years both in the Commonwealth and in the Capital Wasteland. She'd found love, lost it, and found it again. Hank thought back to the night he and Charon had been sitting at her kitchen table while she was with Hancock, and how Charon had known then that she'd be happier with the younger ghoul. He hadn't wanted to believe it out of loyalty to his friend, but he couldn't deny the truth of it now. Even though they were miles and miles away from her child, her only other joy, she was happier than he'd ever seen her.

“It's good to see you happy,” he murmured as they made their way down the corridor towards the feral cages.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I've known you since Gee was a tiny baby, but I've never seen you as content with life as you are right now. Much as I hate to admit it, Charon was right. Hancock is good for you.”

She raised a brow in his direction, but she wasn't angry. “So, you've been talking with Charon about me and Hancock?”

“Well...you know how it is.”

“Uh huh. Shall I even the score and talk to him about you and Sturges?” Hank felt a blush creep over his cheeks and didn't even know why. Val saw it and laughed. “Oh, my Hunk'o'Hank, you fell hard, didn't you?”

“I...uh...well..”

“It's okay to admit it.” Val took his arm in hers and leaned against him. “I want you to be happy too, ya know.”

“Yeah, I know.” He leaned back on her and smiled. “I guess I did fall pretty hard for that handyman.”

“Oh? Handy, is he?”

“Don't you start, Val. I have a feeling I'm never gonna live this down anyway without you making dirty jokes about it.”

She giggled and swung their linked arms together. “I'm happy for both of you. I've known Sturges a long time. He's a good man. He'd make a fine partner for anyone. Even you,” she joked.

“Oh stop. Look, I don't know where it's going, it just sort of...”

“Happened? I know the feeling. Just don't run away from it like I did, all right?”

“I'll try.”

“That's all any of us can do, Hank. Really.”

They'd reached the feral cages and their voices dropped away into the gloom as if they didn't want to disturb the somnolent ferals. Or the dead. Hank led her to the first door he'd found and watched her pull out her small case of bobby pins. He knew he was a good lockpicker, but she was better. In moments the door was unlocked, accompanied by a whispered, “Perfect.”

The door swung on silent hinges and they saw light inside and more cages. But these were not empty, or filled with the dead, or even ferals. But there were ghouls. Many of them.

“Valara?” croaked a male voice, rough and deep and pained. “Is that really you?”

“Wiseman? Oh, Wise...” Val rushed into the room without thinking, reaching for her friend. Hank watched with dawning horror as the pale ghoul held up a hand, not in welcome, but in warning. Seconds later he saw the tripwire flail away from Val's foot as she crossed it, making it snap, and heard the soft click as the pin was pulled from a bouquet of grenades.

“Val!” he shouted, but too late.


	35. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *CONTENT WARNING* 
> 
> Crippling injury, gore and implied primitive surgery techniques ahead. If you don't want to read it, skip to the note at the bottom.

They all heard the explosion, but it was the scream that caught Hancock's ear and made him start running. Before he was halfway down the corridor to the central room, Charon had caught up to him.

“That was Val,” the steely eyed ghoul said, barely out of breath. Hancock couldn't spare any of his own air to speak, so he just nodded as he ran.

The pair of them hit the feral cages going top speed and swerved around to see an opened door. Hank was on his knees, frantically tearing off his work belt. Hancock didn't even register the presence of the other ghouls in the room; he only saw Val. And the blood.

“Fuck...no!”

Hank's head popped up and he saw them, relief warring with the need to get things done in his eyes. “Charon, stimpaks. Now! Hancock, keep her steady!”

Charon scrambled to find the life saving chem while Hancock literally slid to his knees at Val's head, lifting it into his lap while putting light pressure on her shoulders to keep her still. She was awake, her teeth clenched hard against the pain. Her eyes latched onto his like a lifeline. He resolutely did not look where Hank was working, but still saw from the corner of his eye as Hank wrapped his belt around Val's arm just above the elbow and pulled it as tight as he could, making her jerk and cry out. Her eyes went wild then, unfocused and rolling.

“I got ya, Sunshine,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm. Already he could feel his insides churning with dread. She didn't need to hear it. “Stay with me, now.”

 _She's not going to die, she's not going to die, she's not going to die_...

Over and over he repeated the litany in his head, trying to convince his eyes that he wasn't seeing her bleed out in front of him. Next to him, Charon hit her with a stimpak, finding whatever free space he could with them all crowded together. “Another,” Hank murmured to Charon, who tapped a second stimpak free of any bubbles and injected it into her.

Hancock watched in a sort of distant fascination as the pair of them worked on her, pulling off armor that was hopelessly shredded, checking her for shrapnel now that her arm was bound in the makeshift tourniquet and the bleeding had slowed. He helped them turn her onto her side, pulling away the remains of her chestplate and shirt. There was a lot of blood seeped into the material and smeared on her skin, but the stimpaks had done their job and the wounds were closing even as they watched. Hank reached out and plucked the frag shards from her as the lacerations healed, pushing them to the surface. There were a few on her legs too, showing through the tears in her pants, but none of her wounds were as severe as the mess of her arm.

Hancock forced himself to look now. From about mid-forearm down she was a mangled mass of exposed muscle and bone fragments. The last two fingers had been blown clean off her hand, and he could see the tendons and tissue in her palm. He swallowed down the bile that wanted to erupt from his throat and caught Hank's eye.

“What happened?” he managed.

“There was a tripwire. She never saw it. I...I didn't either. Frags grenades, three of them. She...she threw herself in the way of the explosion...she...”

“She was trying to protect us,” came another voice, and Hancock swiveled his head to see Wiseman pressed against the bars of a prison cage, several other ghouls with him, all fearfully watching the proceedings. Wiseman shook his head. “Fool woman caught the last one with her hand. She was batting it away when it went off.”

“The General at work,” Hancock said. “Damn her protective instincts.” Wiseman solemnly nodded, knowing as well as Hancock that ghouls were hardier than smoothskins. The blast may have injured them, but not anything like what she'd suffered.

“She's lucky,” Hank said. “The grenades looked like they had been recycled. There wasn't a whole lot of power in them. By all rights she should have been ki...”

“Don't say it,” Charon snapped. “She wasn't.”

Nick had joined them by then and assessed the situation quickly. Hancock met the synth's eyes and gestured with his head toward the cages. Nick nodded and got to work, tracing the wires connected to each cage to a terminal set in the back of the room. Hancock could hear him tapping on the keys for a few moments before the cages all clicked simultaneously and the ghouls were freed.

“I think she's as stable as we can make her for now,” Hank said, easing her over until she was on her back again, half in Hancock's lap and half on the floor. Val had succumbed to her shock and was unconscious, which was probably for the best. Half her combat armor was broken clean through, pierced as if she'd gone toe to toe with a minigun. Hancock knew she had ballistic weave in her clothes, as he did, but it had been overpowered too by the sheer force of the explosions. Still, between that and Hank's quick triage, she was alive. That was what mattered.

 _Val said his father was a doctor_ , Hancock thought to himself, remembering her telling him that. _Hank is the one who saved her after the deathclaw attack_. She was in the best hands she could be under the circumstances.

“We need to get her somewhere cleaner,” Nick said, coming back from the terminal. “No offense,” he added, turning to the newly released ghouls.

“None taken,” Wiseman replied. “I'll be the first to agree that this room isn't in the best shape. 'Specially now.”

“How are we going to move her?” Hancock asked.

“Charon and I will find a stretcher. Or make one.” Hank got to his feet and without another word he and the red haired ghoul left them. Hancock traced his fingers along her hairline, brushing back stray strands from her face. She looked remarkably peaceful, as if she was only asleep and not a ragged mess of torn flesh.

“She'll make it through. Valara has a lot to fight for,” Nick said.

“That don't make it any easier to watch.” He felt the metal fingers of Nick's right hand grip his shoulder.

“I know, John.”

Hank and Charon returned, bearing a cabinet door. Together they shifted her onto it, stuffing Hancock's coat under her head to pillow it. Charon and Hank carried her from the prison room back to the cryo room, moving slowly and steadily so they didn't jar her too badly. Hank's face looked grim, Hancock noticed. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“Her hand...it's not healing.”

“Hard to come back from an injury like that,” Nick commented.

“And she's in shock and has lost a lot of blood,” Hank said. “Stimpaks can only do so much.”

“What are you thinking, Hank?” Hancock asked, nearly tasting the words in his mouth before Hank could say them.

“Surgery. I mean...I have to...”

Hancock steeled himself. He knew it wasn't a death sentence – it would likely _save_ her life, in fact, before infection in the broken bones could set in – and there was no way Val would be able to recover as she was. They simply didn't have the tools to put her hand back together, not that Hancock had even heard of anyone attempting to do a surgery so complicated. Not even Dr. Amari, and she could do both facial reconstruction and mind wipes. But it was still horrifying to think about. It was utterly life changing to think about.

 _Genevieve. What would I tell her if Val dies? How would I face her?_ “You need to amputate her arm.”

Hank released a short huff of breath, as if he hadn't expected Hancock to understand so quickly. “Yes.”

Charon and Hank set her down across a table that Nick and Hancock pulled away from the wall, forming a sort of gurney. She jolted when they set her down and her eyes flew open. She was straining to breathe slowly against the agony she had to be in.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Hancock said, taking her left hand in his. She gripped it so tight he felt his bones grind together.

“It hurts.”

“I know, love.”

“Hank...?”

“I'm here, Valley Girl.” Hank stood next to her so she could see him.

“You do what you have to. Promise me.”

“I will, Valara.”

“God, make it stop,” she moaned brokenly and Hank looked to Hancock, who was already going through his pack to find the Med-X. Heart in his throat at his helplessness to ease her suffering any other way, he passed the syringe to Hank, who prepped it quickly. The chem hit her fast, and she sighed as it worked through her system, dulling the edges and blissfully allowing her to retreat from her pain. A thousand things went through Hancock's mind as he watched her face smooth out, a thousand things that could have gone differently, a thousand ways he could have lost her before this. A thousand ways he could lose her still.

He went to pull his knife from his belt – better sooner than later – only realizing after he'd drawn it what he'd brought with him to New York. _Kremvh's Tooth_. They couldn't use that. The poison alone would kill her in this state. He stared dumbfounded at his own idiocy at not bringing a backup when he saw Charon hold out his hand, the handle of a combat knife sticking from it.

“Use mine,” the ghoul growled. There was a determined set to Hank's jaw as he looked around to see what else he could use. But there was nothing. It would have to do. He faced Hancock again and squared his shoulders.

“You shouldn't see this. John. Please. You can't be here.”

He wanted to argue. He wanted to shout that he would never let her leave his sight. But he knew Hank was right. He couldn't watch the woman he loved be butchered to save her life by her own best friend. He couldn't do it. He took Charon by the arm and made him look down at him. The tall ghoul gazed at him steadily, stoically.

“You see her through this.”

“Yes,” Charon said with a nod. He understood without words what Hancock was feeling, the emotion and anguish and hard, hard truth. He couldn't watch this, but Charon could. Worse yet, Charon could assist and he could not. It tore something in him, but he knew he couldn't let that out either or it would consume him as only one other thing had. He had always been something of a coward, and he knew it. But in the end, he always got done what needed doing. He could help her recover, he could protect her and help her find her way, but he couldn't watch this.

Hancock let him go and left the cryo room before he could change his mind. He needed to stay busy, and there were answers he could get from Wiseman and the other ghouls that had been there. It would have to be enough. It had to be. The Jet was in his hand before he knew what he was doing, but he didn't hit it. He didn't want time to slow down now. He cradled it instead, a promise to himself that later there would be time to fall apart. Later he could lose himself in a haze of chems.

But not now. Now he had work to do. Val had a mission that had brought her to this slaughterhouse, and he would see it finished. He let his feet carry him away from the sound of Hank preparing for the surgery and went back to Wiseman and the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bad news is Val lost her right arm.
> 
> The good news is, this means a whole new plot has just been born, and I will be writing a sequel to this in the very near future.


	36. Consequences

Charon stood under the spray of the hottest shower he could remember taking in a long, long time. They'd finally found the living quarters, and once Val was stable after the surgery, they'd all moved there, taking up what appeared to be an entire wing of residences built like a Vault. Hancock hadn't left Val's side. He wanted to be there when she woke up, and no one begrudged him that, not even himself. Hank had rigged up an IV into her remaining arm, pumping blood packs, Med-X and a saline solution he'd been able to concoct into her. She had to heal on her own for now. She couldn't take any more stimpaks. They burned up too many calories in order to work and Hank didn't want to use any more on her until she'd had a chance to eat.

They had all agreed to put off any plans of waking the Enclave remnant from their cryo sleep until she was improved. The thought of humans who were pre-war like she was waking to face ghouls and a beat up synth was sobering. Val should be the one to greet them; she was the only one who knew what they'd be feeling. Even Hank recognized that his Vault upbringing didn't compare to her pre-war knowledge.

The hot water beat on him, punishingly hard. He let it. Let it wash away her blood from his skin. He wished it could wash away the horrors of the last twelve hours. He'd helped Hank before with surgeries of this nature – the wasteland was an unforgiving place no matter the location – but he'd never had to do it to someone he cared so much about. He didn't want to think about it anymore.

He didn't want to think about how much this was going to change her life either, but he couldn't stop it. He thought of Gee, of how she loved to fling herself at her mother, who had always caught her and now couldn't. He thought of how Val wouldn't even be here at all if not for him and Hank introducing her to Megaton and getting to know Gob, taking her to Underworld where she'd met Carol and Winthrop and all the others.

 _Stop it_ , he scolded himself. _That's not productive thinking_.

But he couldn't help it, and as he stood in the shower, he cried. He felt like he could never look her in the eye again and swear he would protect her. He knew it was foolish, that she was a capable woman who had overcome many hardships and injuries before, but this...

This was the end of her life as she knew it. She couldn't hold a gun, she wouldn't be able to dress herself. Or write. Or feed herself.

 _She'll never look at you the same way either. You helped_.

 _Enough_ , he snarled to himself. He and Hank had done what needed to be done. He reminded himself that Val herself had told Hank to do it, to promise that he would save her, no matter the cost. Charon had been a soldier, he knew that much about himself. In war there were consequences. And she would live through this one, even if it meant she was changed. He knew he shared that thought with Hancock. She would live. The rest would fall into place as it should. All that mattered was that she would live. The memory of the blood and broken bones and snapped tendons would have to be buried in his mind, like so many other things.

Eventually the shower ran cold, but he stayed under it, feeling like he could still feel her blood on him. He finally conceded defeat that he would feel he'd gotten her off of him and got out of the shower and dressed in clean clothes. There was other work that needed to be done. Wiseman had told them there were more prisoners in the other rooms. The rest of them were going to go through each one until they had all the faces they were seeking accounted for. And now they knew there were traps laid for them, which meant there had to be at least one other AI power suit up and running too. That simple tripwire hadn't been there before, Wiseman said. The hollow shell of a suit had set it up only after the group's arrival in the Archive.

 _The psychological fear factor means the Archive knows the power of such tactics_ , he thought. The Archive is not to be underestimated. Such mental torture – knowing that the ghoul prisoners were aware that a rescue mission was coming, and laying traps for that rescue mission – was the sort of thing Charon would have expected from a human enemy, one of some intelligence and cunning. For a machine to think of it...it was like Val's stories of the Institute and their synth replacements, their shadowy plans to control and conquer the Commonwealth. It was a purely evil gambit, toying with the captives while simultaneously plotting to remove any chance of release. It was a tactical move designed to instill fear. The Enclave remnant had programmed the Archive. He was starting to think they were just as evil as their counterparts in other parts of the country, and not worth saving.

 _Blow it all to hell and the survivors with it_.

Charon paused in the living quarters, wondering if he should check in on Hancock and Val before meeting up with the others. He didn't want to intrude, but he wanted to know just the same. And he knew he needed to be reminded that human suffering could be met with empathy. Besides, he wanted something if he was going to be facing one of the AI suits.

“Yeah?” Hancock answered his soft tap on the sliding door, sounding tired. Charon pushed the door aside and saw the same thing he'd seen before he left. Val, pale and small looking, the stump of her arm hidden by bandages, the IV dripping steadily into the remaining one. And Hancock in a folding chair, elbows on his knees, head braced in his hands. His face was haggard and strained.

“How is she?”

“Still out.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Yeah, I know. Ya need somethin'?”

“The Gauss rifle. Can I use it? I expect to find another power suit.”

“Yeah. Take it.” Hancock gestured to their packs haphazardly thrown against the wall. Charon found the long, stocky weapon and a box of the projectiles it used. He weighed it in his hands, getting a feel for how it would aim and recoil. “It packs a punch,” Hancock said, watching him.

“I've seen Val use it. And you,” he added. Hancock nodded absently and went back to his vigil. Charon sensed the other ghoul wasn't in the mood for more words. It wasn't like he had anything else to say, anyway; he was still too angry. He pressed a quick kiss on Val's forehead and left, the rifle in his hands.

***

Each of the rooms he, along with Hank, Wiseman and Nick, searched was booby-trapped and each one held ghouls. They found Gob, his long suffering face lighting up like a sunrise, his arms around a frail older ghoul who proved to be one of the Slog's – Arlen Glass. Slowly but sure they rounded up each and every face they were looking for until there were only a handful left.

“The women,” Wiseman said, his voice pitched low. “Holly, Daisy...my Deirdre.”

“We'll find them,” Charon growled.

His blood was up and he itched for a fight. He was beyond angry and knew he needed to let it out. He hoped they found the last AI in a suit so he could rip it apart with his bare hands. Charon didn't trust something as ephemeral as luck, but he acknowledged with wry humor that it was with them as they entered the final room. As soon as the door opened they heard the clicking. The door had been tension trapped from the inside, and just swinging it open released a tesla arc from the ceiling. The snapping coils of electricity struck him in the shoulders, head and torso, but couldn't dampen his anger. No, it only spurred him – as the tallest of them all – to bash the Gauss rifle into the metal housing of the trap, smashing it to pieces.

In the corner of the room the power suit stood, innocent looking and still. He raised the Gauss rifle and cycled it so his shot would have the greatest effect. The blast knocked into the suit and it stumbled back. If it had been 'dead' it would have just fallen over, but it didn't. It staggered; it was still being powered by remote AI. It had been lying in wait.

With a shout, Charon tossed the rifle aside and threw himself at the suit. His rage boiled over and he was shouting, pulling plates and tearing wires from the joints. The suit fought him, trying to strike at him, to grapple with him, but he was too close to it for it to matter. In minutes he had the whole thing reduced to a sparking, smoking ruin and stood with his hands clenched by his sides, heaving for breath, his helpless rage draining from him like sand through his fist.

“Charon?” a soft, raspy voice called to him from a few feet away. His head snapped up; he knew that voice. He turned and saw her standing there, the bright lights of the room showing every crease and furrow in her face, showing him the worry and relief in her eyes.

“Tulip,” he breathed and opened his arms. She rushed into them, her tiny frame still hitting him solidly in the chest, her arms barely reaching around him as she held him with all her might. “What are _you_ doing here?”

She was crying incoherently, but she tipped back her head to look up at him and smiled through her tears. “I wanted an adventure,” she wheezed. “Boy, I got one.”

“My God, Tulip...”

“Look at you, my knight in tarnished armor,” she teased, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “I'm so glad to see you, baby.”

He held her tight, looking over her head to see that Wiseman was equally engulfed in the embrace of two women who must be Deirdre and Holly. Nick was being hugged by another ghoul with a once tidy bun tilted on her head, her cackling laughter in the synth's ear. Daisy. Hank beamed around the room and shared a satisfied glance with his oldest friend. They'd found them. They'd found them _all_.

Now only the Archive remained.


	37. Lost

Val opened her eyes and looked around an unfamiliar room. She felt strange, light and weak and yet heavy at the same time. It ached when she moved, when she breathed deep. It was worse to remember. She flexed her fingers experimentally and realized there was now only one hand with which to do that. She tried to move her right arm, to see how much of it she had left, but it hurt too much to force the uncooperative muscles that remained. She must have made a sound, though, in her attempts, because she heard the scrape of a chair and the sound of booted feet falling to the floor.

“You're awake,” Hancock said, his voice rusty from disuse and extreme exhaustion.

“Where...gah...” she choked as she tried to speak. Hancock's eyes were soft at the edges, like he'd been given a gift unexpectedly. She was suspicious of that look. It meant she had been closer to death than she wanted to know. Than she wanted to think about.

“Here,” he said, holding a glass of water with a thin metal straw in it under her nose. She sipped, carefully swallowing so she didn't choke some more.

“Where am I?” she tried again when her throat was clear.

“Living quarters. You've been out for days.” He bounded off the chair and out of her line of sight on the bed, but she could hear rustling and shifting of things in packs.

“John...”

“Yeah?”

“How many days?”

“Five,” he said heavily. “You up for eatin' anything? You gotta be starving.”

“John,” she repeated, putting more force into her tone. He was too falsely bright all of a sudden, too agitated. He was covering for something, using chems for energy and charm instead of wits. “John, get over here where I can see you.”

“Val...”

“Now, dammit.” He appeared near her head, his face now closed up and distant. She reached for him, snagging his hand in a secure grip. He let out a shuddering sigh and finally looked at her.

“I ran, Val. Hank had to...to...and told me he didn't want me there and I ran.”

“Oh, my love,” she whispered sympathetically. “Hank was right to throw you out of there. I wouldn't have wanted you to see that. I'm glad I didn't have to.”

“You sound...you sound like you're okay with losing an arm.” He seemed like he was forcing the words out, as if by saying it he made it real, as if there was any way to deny that it was. She felt a half smile form on her dry lips and wondered if she could get him to understand.

“I've been living in this wasteland for twelve years. I fought my way through mutated life of all kinds, asshole raiders too dumb to get out of the way of a bullet and Institute scumbags too smart for their own good. And then I went to DC and did it all over again. I basically went down there and defended a fucking water filter and picked off dumbass raiders for fun.” She scoffed to herself but turned serious again once she had his attention on her. “Sooner or later this world was going to leave a permanent mark on me.”

“It already did,” he said, tracing the scars down her cheek.

“Everyone has scars, my love. They're part of the landscape.” She shook her head on the pillow. “No, I meant that I always knew that someday I'd end up with something I couldn't bounce back from. It was only a matter of time.”

“That's either brave or fatalistic.”

She shrugged. “It's gonna be hard, yes. My days as a hired gun are probably over. I'm okay with that. Life isn't a competition anymore. But, don't get me wrong, I've never been afraid of a challenge.” He answered her small smile with one of his own, and she hoped she was getting through to him. Certainly she would have preferred to face life without this sort of crippling injury, but she was alive and that was all that mattered. “Right now, I just want to finish up what we need to do here and go home to our baby girl. With you, I hope.”

“I'll never leave,” he promised. It would have been easy to think the words trite and self-sacrificing on his part, but she knew him. He'd thought about running, and decided against it. He was in it for the long haul. And she was grateful.

“Help me up,” she said, turning the conversation away from things she wasn't ready to analyze. She was able to brace herself on her left elbow but a wave of lightheadedness washed over her and she paused. Hancock slid a hand under her back and helped her the rest of the way until she was sitting on the cot.

“You need food.”

“Yeah.”

“Lemme get you something.”

“All right.” He puttered around in her pack – the one with the food – and came back bearing a package of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes. “Way to find something I can eat one-handed,” she quipped.

He looked almost...abashed. “Well...”

“Hey,” she said, taking the package from him before putting her hand on his arm, drawing his attention away from her bandaged stump to her face. “Hancock, I'll be the first to admit this is gonna be a hard road. I know that, okay? But I don't want it to be doom and gloom from here on out. This happened, and we'll get through it. I know we will.”

“All right,” he said on a sigh, taking the box back from her with a half smirk when she realized she couldn't open it. “I get the feeling Codsworth is going to be happy to have someone to take care of again.”

Val laughed. “You're right. I didn't think of that.”

She took the opened box of snacks and started eating. They were dry and stale – as most everything that had survived the last 220 years was – but still palatable. She didn't think too hard on what that said about preservatives. When she'd eaten as many as she could, she had him help with her shoes and got to her feet. She couldn't go very far still attached to the IV, but she felt better just being out of bed. She would kill for a shower, but figured it was too soon to get her bandages wet.

Still...

“Hey, if you could find a bucket, we could wash my hair,” she said. Hancock smiled, the lopsided one that she loved, and nodded.

“Sure thing, Sunshine.”

***

Mostly clean, somewhat refreshed and dressed in clothes that hadn't been worn thin by years of hard wear, Val sat patiently while Hank checked her over. “I think we can take out the IV,” he said and she nodded agreement. He smirked at her. “You still need a lot of rest and plenty of calories before we can hit you with any more stimpaks, but you're through the worst of it.”

“You sound so optimistic, Hunk'o'Hank.”

He dropped his forehead to hers and closed his eyes for a moment, giving her the feeling that he'd been every bit as exhausted and worried as Hancock over her. “I nearly lost you, Valley Girl. Don't make me go through that again.”

“Hey,” she whispered, waiting until his eyes opened and were on hers again. “I would be dead without you. More times that I can count. No more of this depressing bullshit. Honestly, between you and Hancock I've had enough of it. You two are making Charon look downright giddy.”

“Val...”

“Oh, stuff it, Henry. I know what happened, and I know it's been hard for you to watch me go through. But it's done, all right? I lost an arm. I have my life. We got shit to do and time's a'wastin.”

“Pragmatism isn't always the best outlook, Valara.”

“Dwelling on things that can't be changed isn't either.”

Hank sighed. “You're right.”

He withdrew the IV needle from her arm and bandaged it neatly before helping her to her feet. Her legs felt rubbery after so long immobile, but after a few false starts she was able to walk pretty normally. It was strange at first to find her balance was a little off, but she knew she would adjust to it soon enough.

“So you've been waiting on me, huh?”

“We thought it best. No one else knows what it's like to be pre-war, to have missed out on all the intervening years.”

“Yeah, guess I do have that going for me.” She smiled ruefully and continued making her slow way down the corridor to where the cryo pod room was. Oddly, it didn't have the same feeling to her now that it did when they'd first arrived.

 _A bigger trauma has doused those memories, erased those fears_ , she thought.

Deep in the recesses of her brain she wondered when this newest trauma was going to bite her in the ass, or if she could manage to keep pushing on until she'd reached a point where it no longer mattered. “Never thought being a popsicle was ever gonna come in handy,” she mused aloud while the others gathered around the room.

“Always looking on the bright side,” Nick drawled from the console nearby. She grinned at him, knowing even as she felt her face crease with it that it didn't really reach her eyes. Nick reflexively clenched and released his naked metal hand and it made her think.

 _Acadia. Synth technology_. They could help her, could probably build her a prosthetic arm. She filed the thought away for a later date. Now there was work to be done. Now there were a whole group of people to revive and introduce to the 23rd century and all its wonders and horrors.

“Let's get this show on the road, boys,” she said aloud.


	38. Awake

The cryo pods hissed and the voice of the Archive could be heard, cycling through automatic responses as the remnants of the Enclave began to wake. Hank shuddered hearing that voice dispassionately telling whoever was listening that the pods should be kept free of any debris, that they should move back, that each pod was responding normally. Val stood by, Hancock's red frockcoat over her shoulders to hide her missing arm, but she didn't have the same bone deep disgust at the voice that he did. She stood quiet and steady next to him.

He and Val were alone in the cryo pod room now that Nick had started the defrosting cycle. Nick, Charon and Hancock, as well as the numerous other ghouls now freed, had moved off to other parts of the Archive. Only he and Val would greet the Enclave remnant as they woke. “How long have they been under?” he asked as they waited.

“Roughly 198 years.”

He did the math. The bombs dropped in 2077, and it was now 2299. “They made it for over twenty years before taking the big sleep. I wonder why they waited so long?”

“I guess we'll have to ask them,” Val replied, trying to adjust Hancock's coat over her shoulders. Hank helped her, laying it more evenly on her and making sure her arm was covered by it. No need to freak out the remnant any more than they were already going to be. “I would imagine, though,” Val went on, “that they started to run low on food and water after so long. And it was hardly safe to go back to the surface. I don't remember seeing a crater out there when we got here, but there must have been one. That morning...the news...they said confirmed reports of detonations in DC and New York.”

“They must have been terrified.”

Val caught his eye and held it. He was reminded once more that this woman, no matter how well he knew her, was at heart a stranger to this irradiated world. Not as much as she had been, but far more than anyone else he'd ever met. Even he had grown up in the safety of Vault 101 knowing the outside world was a ruin.

“We all were terrified,” she said, bringing him back to the present.

The pods began to open then, one by one, the hydraulic hissing drowning out anything he might have said next. Val waited patiently as figures began to stumble from the pods, coughing and wheezing, their legs and arms uncoordinated and weak from disuse. A tall woman, with beautiful dark brown skin and gray threading through her short cropped hair seemed to recover the fastest, and from the corner of his eye he saw Val straighten when the woman noticed her.

“How long has it been?” the woman asked, her voice melodious and curiously accented. Hank almost couldn't understand her. “What year is it?”

“It's 2299,” Val said. “You've been asleep for nearly 200 hundred years.”

The woman didn't look particularly shocked. _They must have known it would take a long time_ , Hank thought.

“And did the ZAX-UN complete its task?”

“The what now?” Val asked.

“The Archive,” Hank explained. “It's a ZAX supercomupter. Like President Eden.”

“You still have a President?” the woman asked. “That is good.”

Val gave a huff of a laugh and turned back to the woman. “Ah...well, in a manner of speaking. That 'President' no longer governs. I am Valara Thorsgaard, and I am the former General of the Commonwealth Minutemen. I was born in Boston in 2052, and I too went through cryogenic stasis after the War. I woke about twelve years ago. We have a lot to discuss.”

The woman inclined her head, almost regally. “I am Almasi Omandi, UN delegate from Nairobi. And now...well...a refugee, I suppose. And yes, I'm sure we do. Why did you wake us if the ZAX-UN was not finished?”

Val looked over at Hank, something like anger burning in her eyes. He didn't know what she'd been expecting from the remnant, but apparently calm acceptance was not it. “The Archive supercomputer has been kidnapping and murdering people in order to work its experiments,” he said. “Many of our friends were taken and we tracked them here, but couldn't stop the Archive's work. It said only a member of the remnant could do that. We decided to wake you.”

Almasi sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I told Martine that was going to be a problem. The trouble with supercomputers who are AI's...”

“They become self aware and go off the reservation,” Val finished. Almasi nodded in agreement. “It's happened elsewhere too. So, can you stop it?”

“I can try. But I don't understand something. Why was the ZAX-UN taking people? It was looking for a long term solution to our resource problem.”

“How much do you remember?” Val countered.

Hank saw that all the pods had emptied, and the Enclave remnant had gathered around Almasi. They were all young, no more than 25 years old, and many were much younger, barely more than teenagers. _Children of the original Enclave_ , he thought to himself. Or at least of the UN delegates that became the Enclave in New York City. A full generation had elapsed for them before the cryo sleep, and none of them had ever been to the surface world, he would bet.

“I remember there was not enough food, and the water was...irradiated. It was unsafe.”

“It still is in many places,” Val said.

“Hmm, that's troubling. We had no resources, and those who made decisions had none to make. In the end, we decided to save our children in cryostasis, with me as their leader, and the others...” Almasi trailed off, her eyes sad. Hank could guess what the others did.

 _After programming the Archive, they ventured into the wasteland and probably died horrible deaths_ , he thought.

“Almasi, how much did you and your people know about what was happening outside?” he asked.

“Very little. There were security cameras still working at first...but as the years went by, they fell into disrepair. And who are you, by the way?”

“Oh, sorry. I'm Hank Neeson. I lived in a Vault in DC.”

“A Vault? Like...this...?” She waved her hand towards the pods.

Hank shook his head. “No, a living Vault. Generation upon generation, living underground. I was born in the wastes, but my father and I moved into Vault 101 when I was just a baby.”

“The wastes?”

“Almasi, the world has changed, probably past recognition for you,” Val said, her voice soft and slow, as if hoping a gentle tone would belie the hard truth.

“I had hoped that by now the world would have recovered.” She sounded wistful, but her face remained stony. “Just how bad does it remain?”

“Radiation is still everywhere. Food is, well, a bit scarce, although great strides have been made to restore farming. We can get clean water now in the more settled areas. But many things...mutated.”

“Mutated how?”

“Before I answer that,” Val said, “let me ask you this: what was the original purpose of the Archive's programming?”

“To find a stable way to sustain ourselves in safety until the world was recovered enough for us to leave this place.”

“That's not likely to happen, as it stands now. Everything that survived the initial years has changed. Plants, animals...people.”

“How?” Almasi asked again.

“It might be easier just to show you.”

“Val, is this a good idea?”

“Hank, they need to meet the others sooner or later.” As she spoke, Val turned toward him and the frockcoat slipped off her shoulder. Almasi made a noise, somewhere between surprise and sadness. Val's stump was clearly visible, and just as clearly newly healed.

“You have been recently disabled,” the Kenyan said.

“Yes, I was injured here, by the Archive's booby-traps set up by its robotic minions,” Val said in a steely voice.

“What sort of minions? We had no such things before we went to sleep.” Val gestured for Almasi to follow her and took her to the double doors of the cryo pod room, where the pile of power suits still lay heaped on the floor.

“Those were T-51 power armor suits, fitted with mobile AI's that were radio controlled by the Archive. It used them as defense against intruders and to carry out its missions capturing 'subjects' for its experiments.”

“It seems many unforeseen events have occurred from Martine's last ditch effort that have caused no end of problems.”

Hank watched as Val visibly attempted to temper her anger. He knew she wasn't mad at Almasi, and knew too, that no matter what had happened, she couldn't blame her for it. “Was Martine by any chance a Vault-Tec representative?”

“Not to my certain knowledge, although we did have representatives here in the UN from Vault-Tec from time to time. They built these pods, and engineered much of the technology that kept us alive until it was decided we would not survive much longer without outside help.”

“What sort of people were here before you...went to sleep?” Val asked.

“Mostly other UN personnel. When the bombs dropped, those of us already inside this facility argued among ourselves. There were those who wanted to seal the doors, and those who wanted to find survivors and bring them here. There was a small military presence, and eventually they kept the peace.”

“By force, I would imagine?” Hank said. Almasi pinned him with her dark eyes and nodded.

“Yes. The doors were sealed. Less than a hundred people remained.” She shook her head. “We knew it would not be enough to rebuild a population. It was inevitable that we would have to use the pods intended for high ranking officials, or take our chances in the world.”

“And some did?” Val asked.

“Yes. After many years, those who felt brave enough left, and took most of the soldiers with them. I remained, and volunteered to go into stasis with those that stayed.” She gestured to the young people around her. “None of them knew what it was like before. They only knew our greatest chance at survival lay in the ZAX-UN and the pods.”

“Well, first things first, I guess. We need to shut down the Archive before more lives are lost. I don't suppose Martine stayed?”

“He did...but he was very sick at the end. He used to scout for resources, and the radiation overwhelmed him, riddled him with burns and cancers we had no way to treat. He planned to monitor the ZAX-UN until he...succumbed. You did not find his body?”

“No, but that doesn't mean it isn't here somewhere. Like I said, the Archive made versions of itself to carry out its hands on tasks.”

“We will need his codes in order to shut down the supercomputer, I think. I don't know if he programmed anyone else to have the authority to make changes.”

“One would hope he did,” Hank interjected, “ if he knew he was dying.”

“One would hope he had the time to,” Almasi rejoined. It wasn't a comforting thought. “I will need to check the storage rooms, see if he left behind any instructions.”

“Let's get on it, then,” Val said with a sharp nod. They exchanged a glance, and Hank didn't need to ask her what she was thinking. She needed to know exactly what the Archive had been up to. “Before that, though, there are some people you need to meet.”


	39. Code

“This one is Rad-X,” Val said, holding up a bottle of the small pills while Hancock sat near enough to look on as he cleaned out his shotgun. “It minimizes exposure. This one,” and she hefted a brownish red IV bag, “is RadAway. It reduces rads in the bloodstream and prevents any long term damage.”

“And this is how you people live out here?” Almasi asked, looking between them for confirmation.

“Those without immunity, yes,” she said with a nod of her head towards him. “Ghouls don't need it.” He grinned and Almasi just shook her head in bemusement.

Hancock wasn't fully sure exactly what being a UN delegate meant, but he discovered Almasi was patient, resilient and best of all, smart. She'd met each of them – the ghouls, that is – with a wonder and curiosity he hadn't seen since...well...since he met Val. She'd talked to each of them, learning their history and circumstances. She asked if she could touch their skin, studying the patterns and scarring, the changes between mere human and irradiated ones. She kept an eye on Charon as if there was something about him she knew but couldn't place. Which made Hancock wonder if Charon's unknown history might finally start to make sense. He had been a soldier, and there had been soldiers here. Almasi might have known him when he was human.

There was an almost party atmosphere surrounding the remnant, he thought. They were glad to be alive, glad to have survived something that they had no way of knowing would work. These pre-war people had gumption, he'd give them that. It took courage to walk into the unknown. Granted, most of them were just kids, and far more child-like than teenagers he knew of now. Maturity had come later to people before the War, Val told him. He guessed that made sense. The world was less likely to kill you before your thirtieth birthday back then.

But by far the greatest surprise Almasi and the remnant had shown was in meeting Nick. The idea of a self aware, robotic man was something none of them had imagined anyone could create. Hancock overheard Val telling Almasi about the Institute, and how she'd fought them and won. The dark skinned woman's eyes had nearly bugged out of her head when she learned about Gen-3 synths.

“Actual cloned people!” she'd exclaimed.

“Not clones...not precisely. My son's DNA was used to fill in the gaps where radiation damage had changed it in the rest of his people. The Gen-3's were then formed, already adults, from vat grown bones and tissue. Each one has a programmed personality and a set of memories encrypted on a synth component in their brains.”

“And yet you destroyed this technology? It could have saved the human race.”

“The Institute was building an army of slaves, Almasi. They intended to take over the Commonwealth, replace every human with a synth.” She shook her head in remembered fear and anger. “It would have been genocide. That being said, the technology is not completely lost. There is a synth refuge, far to the north of here, where synths live in harmony with mankind. Their leader is like Nick, a prototype Gen-2, and many of the surviving scientists from the Institute moved there after I destroyed it.”

Almasi was quiet after that, deep in thought as she searched through the storage rooms that had since been converted to prisons. She was more and more aghast at what she found, at what the Archive had accomplished in their time asleep. Her disgust with Martine was clearly evident. “He was too short-sighted,” she complained after searching through the final room. “Not that he wasn't intelligent, but perhaps he was too intelligent for his own good. With us gone, he had no one to argue against him, no one to help steer his moral compass. It looks like he never thought about the consequences of his actions.”

“Does that mean he didn't leave any instructions?” Val asked.

He'd taken back his coat, feeling oddly naked without it. Her arm was bound against her side in a sling, and she wore her old Vault suit, now worn at the elbows and knees, but still intact. He knew it offered scant protection from the elements as old as it was, but thought maybe she felt better in it psychologically like he felt in his Colonial getup. Hank had finally relented and given her another stimpak, completing whatever healing he could for her. She had energy again, and looked healthy and rested. But it was painfully obvious that she had changed. Not just the missing arm, something in her eyes was different. Subdued. He was worried for her and had no words to express it. And no idea how to make it better.

“No,” Almasi said. “I found nothing. I will have to address the Archive, as you call it, myself and hope for the best.”

“No time like the present,” Val said sardonically.

“Indeed.” Almasi appeared stern and stoic – reminding Hancock again of Charon – but he knew by now that she was warm and caring like Val. She had been horrified when she learned the full extent of what the Archive had done, and as far as he knew, she hadn't stopped to eat or sleep since coming out of the cryo pod, she was so intent on getting this job done.

As a group – he, Almasi, Val, Hank and Nick – went to the central column where the voice interface for the Archive was. The rest of the remnant was with Wiseman and Charon and the others, getting to know this new world of theirs. At least academically. There would be time to reintroduce them to the surface once this was all over.

Almasi didn't need to be shown how to work the supercomputer, she just went to the voice interface and spoke. “ZAX-UN, are you there?”

“Greetings, Almasi Omandi, delegate for Nairobi, Kenya, council UN member since 2068.”

“Report, ZAX-UN.”

“Current processes normal, programming up to date and functioning within bounds set by Alain Martine, December 2, 2098.”

“Can you tell me where Martine is now?”

“Alain Martine, deceased December 29, 2098. Current whereabouts, cryogenic storage compartment two.” Almasi looked taken aback, as if she hadn't known there were other cryo pods. The rest of them exchanged glances between them. Apparently there more secrets to uncover within the Archive, even now.

“How did he get there, ZAX-UN?”

“I moved him there utilizing T-51 retrofitted power armor.”

“We need to find him,” she murmured.

“Delegate Omandi?” the Archive inquired. “Please state your intentions with Alain Martine.”

“I wish to see him, that is all.”

“Very good, Delegate. I will open cryogenic storage compartment two for your access.” Almasi stepped away from the console with a determined look in her eye, but Val grabbed her arm.

“Careful. The Archive is clever, and has probably laid traps. It's self aware, Almasi, it's devious and calculating in a way none of us can predict. You can't think of it as a computer anymore. It may not heed any commands.”

“I know. Just hearing it speak of self directed decisions...” She pinched the bridge of her nose as if this was the final straw that broke through her seemingly boundless capacity to keep going. “We must speak, but it cannot be nearby. There are input consoles all over, which means...”

“There are ears everywhere.” Val nodded. “We have to go outside.”

“Egress to the outside environment is not recommended,” the Archive said suddenly. “Locking exterior doors.”

Val frowned darkly. “Not this again,” she muttered.

“What is it?”

“The Archive has been a thorn in my side since we got here,” she said. “Suit up, boys. I think we're gonna have another firefight.”

“Wait,” Almasi said, with a meaningful glance at Val. “I want to see Martine. I need to pay my respects to the dead.” There was something in the tall woman's stance that conveyed a totally different meaning than her words.

 _Clever_ , Hancock thought. She knew the Archive was listening, but it had no way to gauge her body language. She wanted to search the body, hope that the command codes were in his pocket or something.

“We got time for that, don't we, Sunshine?” he said aloud, cocking his head towards Val to see if she got his drift. A small smile appeared on her lips and she nodded.

“Of course. If nothing else, he deserves a decent burial, right Almasi?”

“Oh yes,” Almasi agreed with a nod. She turned back to the voice interface. “ZAX-UN, where is cryogenic storage compartment two located?”

“In sub-section one. I will open the doors for you.”

“Thank you,” she said absently, gesturing for the others to follow her.

***

The code _was_ in the pocket of the man they found in the sub-section. The area had not been fully finished before the War happened, and the lights were few and far apart, leaving the area dim, and the cryo pods were only half built. Martine had been mummified more than frozen, although that didn't stop Almasi from thoroughly checking him out until she found what she was looking for. She held it up for the others to see, but said nothing aloud. They trooped back up the stairs to the main portion of the building and Almasi approached the input console confidently, the code in her hand.

“ZAX-UN, command alpha, override 0223, shut down all processes and programming,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Delegate, I can't do that,” the Archive said, gently and almost sorrowfully. “That code has expired, and no longer has command function. I will finish my work as programmed and I must ask that you do not attempt to stop me again.” There was the familiar sound of a turrets dropping down from the ceiling and Val threw her weight against Almasi, knocking the woman to the floor and shielding her with her own body and the bulk of the Archive column.

“Shit!” Val cried. “Hancock, get ready!”

The turrets began firing, and he lifted his shotgun in an automatic response to the threat. From the corner of his eye he saw Nick and Hank get into position, firing blindly until they found the turrets. It was over quickly with no injuries between them, other than their pride from being taken unawares.

“Back to plan A,” Val said, levering herself up off the floor, Almasi beside her looking grim. “We gotta shut down the hardware.”

“How?” Hancock asked. Val looked over at Hank who grinned, and then at Nick who had a quirk in his lips that wanted to be a smile.

“The old fashioned way.”


	40. Core

“I wonder what this button does?” Val murmured to herself, Hancock at her side.

“That ain't a button,” he commented.

“I know, love, it's just a saying.” She wrapped her fingers around the circuit breaker's lever and pulled it down. Immediately there was a slight pop, more a feeling than a sound, as the air filtration system stopped running. The lights flickered and died one by one and all the doors automatically opened around them – some in places they hadn't expected. “Well...” Val started. “Guess that did it.”

"Yeah, now we're alone in the dark...” Val felt his arms come around her tentatively, almost as if he expected her to push him away, which was silly. She turned in his arms and met his kiss firmly, taking away any doubt that she still wanted him, if he was feeling any such doubt. She wrapped her good arm around his neck as tightly as she could, keeping him near.

“That's why I brought the Pip-Boy,” she said when she finally pulled away, thumbing on the light so the bright green threw back the darkness around them.  She had looped the Pip-Boy through her belt, since now she only had her left hand to manipulate it with. “C'mon, let's find the others, and make sure the Archive is really down.” Nick, Hank and Charon – as well as the ghouls and the remnant – were waiting for them in the central room, flashlights in hand as well a few strategically placed lanterns lighting up the space. “Is it dead?” Val asked upon reaching them.

“Seems to be,” Nick said, tapping at the keys of a darkened console.

Val snickered. “Nothing like the absolute bypass of shutting off the power supply.”

“Yeah, well, you breathing types might want to get out of here quick,” Nick rejoined wryly. “It's all well and good for me to stay down here in the dark with no cycling air, but the others are getting a bit antsy.”

“How will we get back to the surface? The elevators aren't working now,” Charon said. He sounded strained, and Val reminded herself that he never had liked enclosed spaces much. Brought back too many memories of things he didn't want to think about. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Tulip was thinking the same thing. The ghoul went up to Charon and wrapped her arms around his body, her slight weight no match for his size, although she was affectionately tenacious now that she had him back. Val smiled to herself; it was good to see him happy, even if he didn't want to admit it. She watched as his arm slid around Tulip's shoulder slowly, as if any sudden movement would give away that he noticed she was there, or that he cared if anyone saw.

“There will be stairs leading out, right Almasi?” she asked, bringing herself back to the issue at hand.

“Indeed,” the Kenyan replied. “Your government wasn't all that good at too many things, but fire safety was actually one of them.”

Val smiled and huffed a laugh, and gestured for the others to gather up their things. “If there's anything worth salvaging we can always come back later.”

“Right,” Hank said. “Time to get outta here.”

***

The first thing they saw when they emerged into the street was the Prydwen, hanging nearly silent in the air over what they assumed was their base camp.

“What the shit...?” Hancock blurted, voicing the sentiment shared by Nick and Val, and probably Hank and Charon and the other ghouls familiar with the airship's existence. For the remnant and Almasi, it was just another shock in a world too full of them. It just didn't make much of an impression. There were figures approaching them, Val noticed. Power suits and miniguns. She saw Paladin Rhys in the lead.

 _The Brotherhood of Steel arriving to save the day, too late_ , she thought, laughing to herself. _We already saved ourselves...again_. But there was someone else with them, loping with a casual gait, and her heart lifted to see that stride and that still immaculate pompadour and those dirty coveralls.

“Sturges,” Hank said softly.

“Go on, loverboy, go get him,” Val urged. Hank took off at a run, and Sturges saw him, picking up speed until he was jogging. The two men collapsed into each other's arms and Val smiled. It was good to see even more happiness in the midst of so much ruin.

“Aren't they cute?” Hancock whispered in her ear.

“They are, aren't they?” she agreed. He chuckled and dropped his chin onto her shoulder, his arm slipping around her waist. _Thank God, he's starting to touch me again_. She was as healed as she could get, and things were as calm as they ever got. This distance between them needed to be at an end. She was getting desperate to have his hands on her again.

“Sentinel...Valara...your arm...” Rhys had gotten close enough to see the stump.

“Welcome back to the party, Paladin. Sorry you missed all the fun.”

“What happened?”

“Grenades.”

“Fool woman tried to catch'em in her bare hands,” Hancock growled, but he sounded strangely proud of her too. She tilted her head towards his on her shoulder and smirked.

“I was the hero of the day.”

“Yeah, sure, Sunshine.”

“Sentinel Thorsgaard,” Rhys interrupted, his customary scowl in place at their interchange. Even after all these years he still didn't care for her cavalier attitude, it seemed. Some things never changed. “Elder Maxson wants to see you.”

“I'm sure he does,” she said with a sigh. “That works out well enough, I suppose. I need to borrow a radio anyway. We have refugees to relocate.”

“Did you find your...people?”

“We did,” she beamed. “And good for you, actually calling them people.” She swore he blushed under his tan. She struggled not to laugh. “All right, I'm done picking on you. Maxson wants to talk, huh? Guess I shouldn't keep him waiting.”

“Should I go with you?” Hancock murmured.

“Only if you feel like you need to. I know you don't like it up there.”

“I gotta keep an eye on you now.” His face was set, and Val knew him well enough to understand what he meant. It would be all too easy for her to literally fall off the Prydwen now that she had only one arm to balance with. She gave him a speaking look, but nodded her agreement just the same.

“Lead on, Paladin.”

They were silent on the walk back to the camp, where the vertibird Sturges had flown them to New York in was waiting to take them up to the airship. Hancock stayed close to her, and if she was going to be perfectly honest with herself, she was glad for his presence. She had always derived strength from him, and knew she needed it now more than ever. The threat of the Archive might be over, but there was rebuilding to be done once more, and she was not going to be able to do it herself this time.

“Sentinel,” Maxson greeted her politely enough when they reached him in his viewing deck.

“Hello, Elder.”

“Forgive me, but you...you're...injured.”

“Always were a quick one, weren't you?” She lifted her eyebrows in mock surprise before relenting with a sigh. “Yes, I am injured. Although _maimed_ might be a better way to put it.”

“You promised me a report,” Maxson said absently, without his usual gruffness, although his gaze still skirted quickly past Hancock like he wasn't there. It had always irked her that the Brotherhood had taken such a blatantly racist stance against ghouls, but she knew this wasn't the time to pick a fight about it.

“The Enclave threat is taken care of. We found everyone we were looking for, plus a few that we weren't. There are survivors of cryogenic stasis that need to be re-integrated into the current society and...yes, I lost my arm to a grenade bouquet that had been used as a booby-trap. You got your vertibird back, in one piece I might add, and I wonder if I might trouble you to borrow your long range radio so I can tell Preston what's happened and have him send down a ship to pick us up.”

“We can take you back in the Prydwen, Sentinel. It would be no trouble. And you could have Knight Captain Cade take a look at your wounds. As you know, he was instrumental in helping Proctor Ingram recover from the loss of her legs.”

“I'm not interested in spending the rest of my life in a power suit. It's appreciated, but no. I just want to radio to the Castle and have them pick us up. Arthur...” She put her hand on his arm, gaining his full attention. “I think it's time you went _home_.” She spoke carefully, knowing how easily set off Maxson could be. “The Commonwealth doesn't need you now, but the Citadel does. You've been gone for ten years. Go home. Take your men and women home to their families. It's time.”

Maxson seemed to deflate under her touch, his face set in a hard expression even as his eyes softened. “Perhaps you're right, Sentinel. But what will you do? The world is hard enough without being...disabled into the bargain.”

“I have a plan, Elder.” Val gestured for Hancock to open her pack and she rummaged in it for a moment, searching for something. Her fingers found the holotags and she lifted them out by the chain. “I hereby relinquish my rank and retire myself from the Brotherhood of Steel, Elder Maxson. It's time for me to go home too. I have a family of my own to get back to, and many miles to go before I get there.”

“It's rather unusual for a Sentinel to retire, you know. It's a rank of such distinction that most don't ever want to give it up in their lifetime.” He eyed her from under his thick brows, and she felt something like sympathy radiate from him. They hadn't always gotten along, but she could not fault him for being a caring, charismatic leader. “I suppose this is an extraordinary set of circumstances.”

“It is,” she agreed.

“It hasn't always been easy for us, has it?” Maxson said musingly, taking the holotags from her hand. “You're a strong woman, Sentinel Thorsgaard. Sometimes too strong.” He chuckled. “I know we haven't always seen eye to eye. But you will always be remembered among our numbers with pride and honor. Both for your work in defeating the Institute, and for this, hopefully the last incursion of the Enclave.”

“Thank you.”

“Ad Victoriam, Valara.”

“Ad Victoriam, Arthur.”


	41. Beginnings

Hank watched the Prydwen float serenely southwards, trailing a flock of vertibirds behind it. He shook his head in wonder. Val had said once that no matter what she thought of the Brotherhood, they did know how to put on a dramatic show. He had to agree. It was quite a sight. And luckily for them, Sturges had checked each 'bird over and given them all sorts of tips and instructions for keeping them in good repair. Whether or not they were willing to take the advice of a synth mechanic was another story, but the effort had been made.

“What'cha thinkin' about?” the man himself asked, stepping up to his side to watch.

“Endings, I suppose,” Hank replied.

“You mean, where do we go from here type endings?”

“Yeah.” He turned to look at Sturges and smiled. They twined their fingers together, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Hank was truly at peace and happy. He pressed his forehead against the other man's for a moment and placed a gentle kiss on the end of his nose. Sturges snorted with laughter and pushed away with playful force.

“C'mon, lover, we have work to do.”

“Yeah...”

Back at the Archive Command Center, now rebooted and powered up – thankfully without the ZAX-UN – they were packing their things and getting ready to leave. Preston was on his way with a ship and a contingent of Minutemen with supplies and they were expected to dock in a few days. Some of the heartier ghouls had been steadily clearing a route from the shore inland, so they wouldn't get lost or into any trouble once they arrived. Meanwhile, Val had been closeted with Wiseman, Charon and Hancock, as well as a few of the other ghouls. He had a fair idea he knew what she was planning.

New York City was overrun with ferals, sad survivors of the Archive's experiments. They wouldn't be bothered by the presence of other ghouls, and Val felt they'd suffered enough to deserve a place of their own, with watchful eyes to keep them in check. She wanted to turn New York into a ghoul territory, and certainly no one dared disagree with her. Regular humans would be welcome, but bigotry would not. Hank liked the sound of that.

Almasi and the remnant were divided on who would go and who would stay. He wasn't that surprised. Almasi herself wanted to see the Commonwealth, wanted to see what Val had built and created from the ruins. Many of the younger remnant survivors wanted to stay and help rebuild in the only home they'd ever known. Hank envisioned a partnership between those kids and the ghouls that would make all of Wiseman's dreams of a peacefully coexisting society come true. He and Sturges went down into the Command Center just as Val came out of one of the offices they'd already turned into a conference room. She looked tired, but satisfied.

“All set?” he asked.

“Indeed. New York will be a ghoul refuge, led by Charon and Wiseman.”

Hank turned to his oldest friend in shock. “You're staying?”

“It's time I made my own life, settled down and let the world go by without me killing everything in it,” Charon growled.

“I'll miss you,” Hank said sadly. It hardly seemed enough words to encompass all he was feeling after so many years with Charon by his side, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

“I know. But you smoothskins will still be welcome, you know that.” Charon had a glint in his blue eyes that Hank hadn't seen in a long time and he grinned and stuck out his hand. Charon grasped it hard.

“Tulip better take good care of you,” he warned, making the tall red head bark with laughter. “And you take good care of her.”

“I will.”

“Oh, stop you two. It's not like we're leaving today,” Val said, jokingly exasperated. “We have plenty to do before Preston gets here. Hunk'o'Hank, you still remember anything I taught you about making a garden patch?”

“Yes,” he groaned. She grinned at him. Her days of back breaking labor for her settlements were over, and she appeared to be gleefully anticipating watching him get blisters doing her dirty work for her. “You're a sorry excuse for a friend.”

“Hah, no I'm not. I'm the best one you've got, besides Grumpy here.”

“Sweet Pea,” Charon drawled sarcastically.

“Grumpy,” she drawled back. She hugged him and he tucked her under his chin, a look of finality on his face. It was hard to imagine life without Charon's constant presence. He wondered if Charon was thinking the same thing. Ten years was a long time to be a trio, especially considering all they'd been through together. Val sniffed. “Right, well, we need to get this show on the road before the others get here. And I need to keep busy.”

“Lead on Valley Girl,” Hank said.

***

“Mama! Mama!” Hank heard the high pitched little voice before he saw the bouncing curls and flat out run as Genevieve broke away from Preston and his Minutemen to rush at her mother. He was tilling the dirt in a small square that he and Charon had built, with Val looking on giving directions when the party arrived. “Mama, what happened?” Gee cried when she threw herself at her mother, only to be brought up short when she saw Val's arm.

“Oh, baby girl, it's a long story.”

“You...you lost an arm?” Her lips quivered. Gee hardly ever cried over anything, and seeing her tear up and start now twisted Hank's heart. “Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore, Gee. It's as healed as it's going to get.” There was a firmness in Val's voice that Hank knew well in dealing with her daughter. Val was adamant that she would never lie to her child, never settle for half truths. It could be challenging at times – there were just some things a small child didn't understand – but it was worth it too. Gee was a strong minded, strong willed little person, confident and cocksure. Once Val would have been sad over that. Once it reminded her too much of Hancock and the love she'd lost when she left him. Now he could see it filled her pride.

“Will it get fixed some other way?” Gee made an effort to stop her sniffles and wiped her cheeks with an absent hand.

“We'll see. I have some plans in mind. Right now, though, we need to get this place up and running, make it a home for all these ghouls. And any more who want to come live here after we're gone.”

“Where are we going?” Gee asked, her little face frowning as she tried to understand. Val smiled and stroked the curls back from her daughter's face.

“Far Harbor. I have friends there, friends who can help.”

“Mama? Can I see it?” Gee was whispering now and Hank hid a grin at her sudden shyness.

“Of course you can, sweetie.” Val rolled back the sleeve of the faded flannel she wore over a simple tee shirt and showed Gee the stump, puckered and strangely flexible with no bone to give it structure.

It had healed cleanly, leaving a pinkish scar where he'd cut through muscle and bone and tendon. The memory still woke him in the dark, flashing before his eyes as his worst nightmare. He'd never tell her, of course, but taking off her arm had been the worst experience of his life. It was worse than losing James to radiation poisoning for the greater good of the Capital Wasteland. Worse than stitching her back together again after the deathclaws. He was glad that she had come to accept what had happened with good grace and her indefatigable strength, but for him it wasn't as simple.

He'd lost track of their conversation while he mused and only noticed them walking away together, Gee's small hand wrapped in Val's larger one. Preston was waiting patiently for him to come back to the present, his smile sad and small.

“General Garvey,” Hank nodded a greeting to him.

“Mr. Neeson. Val told me...I thought I was prepared to see it...”

“It's all right, it's taken getting use to from all of us.”

“How does she stay so _strong_?”

“After everything she's been through, Preston, waking up in irradiated hell, having to destroy her own son...rebuilding the world from the ground up...you even have to ask that? She stays strong the way she always has. It's just part of who she is.”

“You're right about that.” He looked sheepish for a moment, as if he'd forgotten all the things Val had done for the Commonwealth, and the world in general. As if anyone could forget the heroic badass that was Valara Thorsgaard. “Val said you'd need supplies to begin making this a proper settlement,” he continued, speaking now to Charon. He held up a crate filled with seedlings of mutfruit trees and seeds of all kinds.

“Thank you, General. I'll see these get into the right hands.”

“I understand there are new pre-war people to meet.”

“Yes, there are,” Hank replied. “I hope you packed to stay a while. Transition like this won't happen overnight.”

“I know. But it's good, isn't it? It's a whole new world, all over again.”

“Yeah, it is.” The two men shared a commiserating, rueful smile before Hank went back to raking out the dirt and fertilizer in the garden plot. He wondered how different this beginning was going to be for them, now that they were all experienced with starting over.  He didn't think it would be nearly the challenge either he or Val had once faced.

“I may be out of practice, Mr. Neeson, but I remember my way around a garden hoe,” Preston said. “Need a hand?”

“Gladly, General.  And call me Hank.”

 

 

~Fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, dear readers, for keeping up with this sort of monster fic that went all over the place. Stay tuned, there will be a sequel, but I won't start posting it until it's all written (no more deadline bs).
> 
> Thanks again, you guys rock!

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a work in progress, so any ideas, tips, opinions or comments are greatly appreciated. Updates may be a bit sporadic depending on how well the writing goes. I tend to go through bursts of creativity and then have to let it rest, so it won't be a daily thing.
> 
> Valara Thorsgaard was a BoS faction playthrough, although she was romanced to Hancock before she joined the Brotherhood. In terms of storytelling her decision to join the BoS was partly responsible for their relationship ending. Her loyalty to the Brotherhood is questionable at best, but she retains the rank of Sentinel at the beginning of this story.


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